RUE  AND  BEAUTIFUL 

' 


THE  TRUE  AND  THE  BEAUTIFUL 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1S58,  by 
WILEY  &  HALSTED, 

in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  United  States  for  the  Southern 
District  of  Nev   York. 


Tvow's 

PKISTINO  AND  UOKKHINDING  Co., 
205-213  Hast  i2t/i  St., 

MiW    VUKK. 


CONTENTS. 


PERCEPTION  OF  THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

Perfect  Taste, ...  4 

Taste  as  distinguished  from  Judgment, ......  4 

Cultivation  of  Taste,  .  -     .  ....  6 

TYPICAL  BEAUTT. 

Infinity,  8 

Unity,  ....  ......       11 

Repose,         ...•••••...13 

Symmetry, 17 

Purity, ,        .18 

Moderation, 20 

VITAL  BEAUTY. 

Evidences  of  Happiness  in  the  Organic  Creation,  .        .        .24 

Healthy  vital  energy  in  Plants, 25 

Beauty  in  Animals, ..25 

Human  Beauty, 27 

The  Operation  of  the  Mind  upon  the  Body,   .....      29 
Passions  which  mar  Human  Beauty,     ......      81 

The  Ideal, 34 

The  Beauty  of  Repose  and  Felicity,  how  consistent  with  the  Ideal,       35 
Ideality  predjcable  of  all  living  creatures,       ...  .36 

Purity  of  Taste,     ...  36 


2230S02 


VI  CONTENTS. 

II. 

fate. 

THE  SKY. 

The  peculiar  adaptation  of  the  Sky  to  the  pleasing  and  teaching  of 

Man, 42 

The  carelessness  with  which  its  lessons  are  received,  4:4 

Many  of  our  ideas  of  the  Sky  altogether  conventional,   ...  4.3 
The  idea  of  God's  immediate  presence  impressed  upon  us  by  the 

Sky,      '    .                .        .  44 

CLOUDS. 

Variation  of  their  character  at  different  elevations,         .                 .  45 

Extent  of  the  upper  cloud  region, 45 

Characteristics  of  the  upper  Clouds,   ......  46 

Wordsworth's  description  of  these  Clouds, ....  47 

The  central  Cloud  region,  .  .  49 

The  Clouds  of  Salvator  and  Poussin, 49 

Clouds  as  seen  from  an  isolated  Mountain,  ....  52 

Sunset  in  Tempest, 53 

Serene  Midnight, 53 

Sunrise  on  the  Alps, .........  54 

Rain  Cloud*,  ..........  51 

Marked  difference  in  color, .55 

Value  to  the  Painter  of  the  Rain  Cloud,  ....  56 

The  intense  blue  of  the  Sky  after  rain,  ....  56 

The  Campagna  of  Rome  after  a  storm, 57 

Typical  Beauty  as  perceived  by  the  Greeks  in  Nature,  .  .  58 

The  evanescent  beauties  of  Nature, 63 

The  Campagna  of  Rome  by  evening  light, 69 

WATER. 

The  functions  and  agency  of  "Water, .60 

Effect  of  Sea  after  a  prolonged  storm, 60 

The  "yesty  waves." 60 

Rivers  lean  to  one  side,         ........  61 

Falling  water.     The  Fall  of  Schaffhausen, G.'i 

Pond  by  the  road  side,          ...                 ....  6.1 

The  interrupted  stream,        ...                 .        .        .        .  Gt 

The  continuous  stream, 65 

rhe  elevations  of  the  Earth  the  cause  of  the  perpetual  flow  of  Wai  nr,  6  G 

The  irregular  waves  of  the  sea, 68 

MOUNTAINS. 

The  dry  land  appears  at  the  fiat  of  the  Almighty,  ...  69 

This  was  a  command  that  the  earth  should  be  sculptured,      .  69 


CONTENTS.  Vli 

PAOR 

The  manner  and  time  uncertain, 69 

The  Hills  are  tlie  Earth's  action ;  the  Plains  its  rest,      ...  73 

Mountains  are  the  bones  of  the  Earth,  ...          *  73 

Forms  of  Mountains,  how  modified  by  snow,          ...  74 

The  works  of  the  Great  Spirit  deep  and  unapproachable,       .  75 

The  color  of  Mountains,         ........  76 

Mountain  flowers, 76 

The  use  of  Mountains, 77 

a.  Give  motion  to  water,  .                 77 

b.  Main  tain  a  constant  change  in  the  currents  of  air,          .        .  77 

c.  Change  the  soils  of  the  Earth, 77 

The  influence  of  the  higher  Mountains, 79 

Fribourg  in  Switzerland, 81 

Ascent  of  the  Montanvert  from  the  valley  of  Chamouni,        .        .  84 

The  glaciers, 85 

Is  this  the  Earth's  prime,  or  is  it  only  the  wreck  of  Paradise  ?  87 
Influence  of  natural  scenery  on  character,     .        .        .        .        .91 

Poetical  influence  of  Hills  and  Mountains,      ....  93 
Mountain  gloom,  .         .         .         .         .'.        .         .        .        .92 

Fertility  succeeds  destruction,                96 

Consecrateo>Mountains,         ........  98 

Deaths  ot  Aaron  and  Moses,          .......99 

The  Mount  of  Transfiguration, 103 

TitEES. 

Laws  common  to  all  forest  trees,  .......  106 

Care  of  Nature  to  conceal  uniformity,    ......  10*? 

Characters  of  natural  leafage,         .         .         .        .        .        .        .107 

Termination  of  Trees  in  symmetrical  curres,  .....  108 

Gracefulness  of  Trees  in  plains,      .......  109 

The  Pine  Tree  as  described  by  Shakspeare, 110 

The  Olive  Tree, Ill 

GRASS. 

The  Meadow  Grass,      .......                .  113 

Symbolical  of  humility  and  cheerfulness,        .        .        .        .        .  H4 

The  utility  of  Grass,      ...                 .....  IIS 


III. 

Irrijitrrte. 


ARCHITECTURE. 

Considered  as  a  Fine  Art, .        .121 

The  Seven  Lair  pa  of  Architect- re. 12  J 


V1U  CONTENTS. 

mat 
The  Lamp  of  Sacrifice,          .....  122 

The  Lamp  of  Truth, 125 

Tho  Lamp«of  Power, .126 

The  Lamp  of  Beauty,   .  ....  .130 

The  Lamp  of  Life, 138 

Tho  Lamp  of  Memory, 140 

The  Lamp  of  Obedience, 1 13 

European  Architecture  derived  through  Greece  and  Rome,  .     147 

Doric  and  Corinthian  Orders, 14e 

The  work  of  the  Lombards  in  Architecture,  ...  .     14S 

Venice, .148 

Commercial  interest  at  first  the  highest  aim  of  Venice,  .  .     149 

The  Venice  of  modern  fiction,       .        ,        .        .        .        .        .151 
Venice  restored  from  its  ruins,       .        .        .        .        .        .        .152 

The  islands  on  which  the  city  was  built, 153 

St  Marks, 154 

The  interior  of  the  Church, 156 

The  nobleness  and  sacredness  of  color, 158 

Ootiiic  Architecture, 1 64 

Characteristics  or  Moral  Elements  of  the  Gothic,         .        .        .166 

Savageuess, 106 

The  Grotesque, 168 

Contrast  between  Northern  and  Southern  countries,  .        .  179 

Gothic  windows  and  roofs, 174 

The  Gothic  in  Domestic  Architecture, 176 

The  Renaissance,  .        .        .         .         .         .  .         .         .178 

Early  Renaissance, .178 

Effect  of  the  sudden  enthusiasm  for  classic  arch.tecture,      .        .     181 
The  '.ise  of  marble  in  Architecture, 182 


fralpt 


IV. 
m. 


Sculptors  of  Egypt  and  Nineveh,  .....  187 

Natural  forms  suitable  for  Sculpture,     ....  18s 

The  uses  to  which  Sculpture  has  been  perverted,           .  191 

The  Torso  oftlie  Vatican,      ...                 .        .  .103 

Michael  Angelo, 199 

Bandinelli  and  Canova, .     20C 

The  Laocoon, .  20C 

No  herculean  form  spiritual, 204 

Michael  Angelo's  snow  statue,       ....  206 

How  are  we  to  get  our  men  of  genius  ?         .        .        •  208 


CONTEXTS.  ix 

y. 

feinting. 

Characteristics  of  greatness  of  style,  ....                .  213 

1.  Choice  of  noble  subject, 213 

2.  Love  of  Beauty, 214 

3.  Sincerity,    ........                 .  218 

4.  Invention,           .........  219 

Historical  Painting, .        ."221 

Hunt's  Light  of  the  World, 223 

Poetical  Painting,        .        .        .        . 223 

The  Ideal,            226 

The  uses  and  abuses  of  imagination, 227 

Compositions, 229 

Raphael's  Cartoon  of  the  Charge  to  Peter, 231 

Raphael's  influence  injurious  to  Christian  Art, 232 

The  Transfiguration, 232 

The  histories  of  the  Bible  yet  to  be  painted, 236 

Illustrated  Bible, 238 

Distinctive  qualities  in  the  minds  of  artists, 242 

Painting  valuable  as  the  vehicle  of  thought, 244 

Ideas  of  Power,           ... 244 

Ideas  of  Imitation,      ..........  245 

Ideas  of  Truth, 246 

Ideas  of  Beauty, 248. 

Ideas  of  Relation, 249 

Burke's  Theory  of  the  Sublime, 250 

The  Truths  of  Nature, 251 

Anecdote  from  Mrs.  Jameson, 252 

All  repetition  blamable, 253 

Color  less  important  than  form,    .        .        .        .         .        .        .        .  •  254 

Landscape  Painting,    .                 255 

Titian  and  Tintoret, 2C1 

The  modern  Italians,    .........  261 

The  Flemish  School,     ...                 263 

Chiaroscuro,         ...........  265 

Tintoret's  Massacre  of  the  Innocents,  .                 268 

1  inloret's  Baptism  of  Christ, 270 

The  Ideal  of  Humanity,       .........  270 

Color, 271 

A  Sunset  on  the  Campagna  of  Rome,  .                .....  273 

Contrasted  with  an  English  sunset,      .                 273 

Portrait  Painting,        .                          .                 .....  275 

Taste  for  unfinished  works, .                 277 


X  CONTENTS. 

PAOP. 

Who  decides  on  the  merit  of  a  picfr  ire?        ,.                .                         .  280 

Reynolds's  principles  contrary  to  his  practice,       .        .  283 

A  knowledge  of  rules  cannot  make  a  Painter,      .        .                         .  283 

Anecdote  of  Haydn  the  Musician,         ....                 .  284 

Great  men  choose  historical  subjects  from  the  age  in  which  they  live,  .  287 

Imaginary  portraits,     .        .        . 238 

Portrait  of  the  Duke  of  "Wellington, 293 

Copying  from  the  antique, 294 

Decorating  Schools  with  pictures,        ......  295 

Want  of  knowledge  of  the  value  of  Paintings, 299 

Loss  of  valuable  pictures, 300 

The  kinds  of  knowledge  indispensable  for  an  artist,      ....  303 


VI. 


Distinction  between  a  poet->al  and  a  historical  statement,     .        .        .  307 

Byron's  Lake  of  Geneva, 308 

W hat  is  poetry? 310 

The  functions  of  the  imagination, 314 

Combination, 314 

Composition, 314 

Analysis, 314 

Action  between  the  moral  feelings  and  the  imagination,        .        .        .  320 

Imagination  fed  by  external  nature, 321 

The  supernatural,         ..........  322 

Manifestations  of  spiritual  being,  .        .......  323 

The  Greeks  could  not  conceive  of  a  spirit,  .        .       t        .  324 

Bacon  and  Pascal, 326 

Shakspeare's  universal  grasp  of  human  nature, 327 

No  mountain  passions  were  to  be  allowed  in  him,        ....  328 

Proofs  of  Shakspeare's  greatness, .        .  332 

Pastoral  poetry, ..  334 

Walton's  Angler, .  833 

Sterne's  Sentimental  Journey,       ...  .        .        •        .  336 

Mrs.  Radcliflfe  and  Rousseau,        ...  «...  337 

Scott's  Lady  of  the  Lake,      ....  ....  337 

Shelley  and  Wordsworth,  ...  .  .  337 

Walter  Scott, '  .  338 

The  representative  of  the  mind  of  the  age  in  literature,.  .        .  388 

The  tests  of  a  truly  great  man, 338  _ 

The  faults  of  the  age.   .        .        .'        .'        .        .  '     .        .        .        .34? 


CONTENTS.  XI 

PAOK 

Reott's  enjoyment  of  Nature,        ....  347 

His  love  of  color,.        .                .  353 

The  power  of  the  masters  shown  by  their  sell  annihilation,   .  361 

Two  orders  of  Poets, 361 

Keats's  description  of  a  wave, 362 

Dante  and  Homer, .        •  362 

"  La  Toilette  de  Constance,"  by  de  la  Vigne,        .        .        •        •        .  366 

Comparison  between  Pope  and  Wordsworth, 370 

The  Jessy  of  .Shenstone,       ........  371 

The  Juno  and  Diana  of  the  Greeks, 373 

The  Greeks'  view  of  Nature, 375 

Taste  in  Literature  and  Art,         .        .        .        •        .        .        .        .377 

Books  rucomn. ended,   ....                .        .        .        .        .  378 


VII. 
Jfinrute  mA 

Natural  imagery  of  tho  Bible, .,  388 

Prejudices  against  the  love  of  Nature,  .......  386 

Love  of  Nature  associated  with  wilfulness  and  faithlessness, .        .        .  387 

The  Sermon  on  tho  Mount,  .........  388 

Railroads  and  telegraphs,     .........  390 

Utopianism,          . 392 

The  use  of  scientific  pursuits, 396 

Falsehood. 396 

No  falsity  harmless,      .                 ........  897 

The  want  of  Faith  in  Christendom,       .......  398 

Romanist  and  Puritan, ,        .  399 

Disdain  of  Bea;ity  in  Man,   .......                .  400 

Utilitarians, .401 

The  Spirit  of  Prophecy, .401 

The  duty  of  Delight, .402 

A  Voice  ot  W.irning,    .....                 «...  403 

Noble  aims, 403 

Influence  of  the  Fall  of  Man,        ...                .        .                 .  404 

All  have  gifts,  various  in  degree  and  kind,    ......  405 

Gratitude  for  tho  deeds  of  the  living,     .......  406 

Intemperance, .        .  406 

Tradesmen  ought  to  be  gentlemen,       ....                         .  407 

Why  is  one  man  richer  than  another?                   .        .  408 
*  Special  Providences,"        .                                  .        .                .413 


Xll  CONTENTS. 

MM 

Natural  aimiration,      .                 ....  414 

Romance  as  generally  understood,        ...  415 

True  meaning  of  the  word  Romantic^   ...  415 

The  difficulties  in  the  way  of  doing  good,     .        .  418 

The  economy  of  dress, 419 

What  are  luxuries  ?....,.                 .  42-1 

Pride  of  knowledge, 426 

The  Divine  Being  as  a  Father  and  a  Friend,          .                         .  .    428 

Fitness  for  a  special  work  essential  to  happiness,  .        .                 .  429 

Limited  views  of  Patriotism, .  43G 

The  perfect  Mistress  of  a  Household, 437 

Modern  development  through  Science,          ...  437 

Early  Christianity, 439 

Teaching  of  the  Beatitudes, .441 

Modern  Infidelity, 442 

Pulpits  and  Sermons, 443 

Modern  Education, 44C 

^Yliat  should  a  man  entering  into  life  accurately  know?       .  446 

Modern  Education  despises  Natural  History,        ...  447 

Modarn  Education  despises  Religion,    .....  448 

The  Holy  Comforter. 451 


PREFACE. 


A  PREFACE  need  not,  as  a  matter  of  course,  be  an  apology. 
Yet,  an  apology  would  be  offered  for  "Selections"  from 
Raskin's  Works,  were  those  valuable  works  accessible  to 
readers  in  general.  Being  voluminous  and  expensive,  they  are 
beyond  the  means  of  many  who  could  appreciate  and  highly 
enjoy  them.  Moreover,  some  of  the  topics  discussed  are 
merely  local  (English),  and  not  specially  interesting  to  the 
American  public.  A  rich  field,  however,  remains,  from  whLh 
these  selections  have  been  carefully  culled,  and  methodically 
arranged  to  form  a  book  complete  in  itself.  For  the  choice 
and  arrangement  alone,  is  the  Editor  responsible ;  the  Au<  hui 
speaks  for  himself. 

L.  C.  T. 

PRINCETON.  N.  J 


NOTICE 


JOHN    RUSKIN    AND    HIS   WORKS. 


ALTHOUGH  novelty  is  generally  a  source  of  pleasure,  yet  what 
is  new  sometimes  meets  with  opposition,  merely  because  it  ia 
new. 

About  twenty  years  ago  a  book  appeared  in  London,  entitled, 
"  Modern  Painters  :  By  a  Graduate  of  Oxford ;"  the  main 
object  of  which  was,  to  vindicate  the  reputation  of  the  land- 
scape-painter Turner,  whose  pictures  had  been  ruthlessly 
assailed  by  the  Reviewers. 

The  author  confesses  that  the  book  originated  "  in  indigna- 
tion at  the  shallow  and  false  criticism  of  the  periodicals  of  the 
day  on  the  works  of  the  great  living  artist." 

And  who  was  the  presumptuous  "Graduate,"  who  thus  threw 
down  the  gauntlet,  and  defied  the  mighty  host  of  Reviewers  ? 
A  young  man  unknown  to  fame !  A  mere  fledgeling  from  the 
University ! 

Yet  in  his  book  there  was  a  bold  originality,  an  uncom- 
promising independence,  quite  startling  to  the  lovers  of  the 


XVI  NOTICE    OF   JOHN   EUSKIX   AND   HIS    AVOUKS. 

old,  beaten  track — the  devotees  to  precedent.  The  daring 
champion  of  Turner,  not  contented  with  asserting  the  \  ainter'g 
claims  to  universal  admiration,  announced,  somewhat  authorita- 
tively, certain  principles  of  Art,  neither  derived  from  Alison 
nor  from  the  Royal  Academy. 

The  "  Graduate"  says,  "  when  public  taste  seems  plunging 
deeper  and  deeper  into  degradation  day  by  day,  and  when 
the  press  universally  exerts  such  power  as  it  possesses,  to 
direct  the  feeling  of  the  nation  more  completely  to  all  that  is 
theatrical,  affected,  and  false  in  Art;  while  it  vents  its  ribald 
buffooneries  on  the  most  exalted  truth,  and  the  highest  ideal 
of  landscape,  that  this  or  any  other  age  has  ever  witnessed,  it 
becomes  the  imperative  duty  of  all  who  have  any  perception  or 
knowledge  of  what  is  really  great  in  Art,  and  any  desire  for 
its  advancement  in  England,  to  come  fearlessly  forward,  regard- 
less of  such  individual  interests  as  are  likely  to  be  injured  by  the 
knowledge  of  what  is  good  and  right,  to  declare  and  demon 
Btrate,  wherever  they  exist,  the  essence  and  the  authority  of  the 
Beautiful  and  the  True." 

The  "  Graduate"  fearlessly  asserts  that  the  old  masters  were 
not  true  to  Nature,  and  claims  to  be  capable  of  judging  of 
these  matters,  for  the  very  good  reason,  namely,  that  he  has 
been  devoted  from  his  youth  to  the  laborious  study  of  practi- 
cal art ;  and,  moreover,  that  whatever  he  affirms  of  the  old 
schools  of  landscape-painting  has  been  "founded  on  a  familiar 
acquaintance  with  every  important  work  of  Art,  from  Antwerp 
to  Xaples." 

He,  however,  modestly  apologizes  for  the  imperfection  of 
his  first  book,  and  keeps  back  a  part  of  it  from  the  public,  foi 
more  mature  reflection,  and  for  careful  revision. 


NOTICE    OF   JOHN   BUSKIN   AXD    HIS   WORKS.  XV11 

The  Reviewers,  who  had  so  severely  handled  the  .audsi.ape 
painter,  now  pounced  upon  the  painter's  fiery  advocate,  who 
had  challenged  them  to  the  encounter. 

Undaunted  V»v  their  fulininations,  "the  Graduate"  comce 
cut  with  a  second  edition  o^  "Modern  Painters." 

"  Convinced  of  the  truth,"  says  he,  "and  therefore  assured 
of  the  ultimate  prevalence  and  victory  of  the  principles  which 
I  have  advocated,  and  equally  confident  that  the  strength  of 
the  cause  must  give  weight  to  the  strokes  of  even  the  weakest 
of  its  defenders,  I  permitted  myself  to  yield  to  a  somewhat* 
hasty  and  hot-headed  desire  of  being,  at  whatever  risk,  in  the 
thick  of  the  fire,  and  begun  the  contest  with  a  part,  and  that 
the  weakest  and  least  considerable  part,  of  the  forces  at  my 
disposal.  And  I  now  find  the  volume  thus  boldly  laid  before 
the  public,  in  a  position  much  resembling  that  of  the  Royal 
Sovereign  at  Trafalgar,  receiving,  unsupported,  the  broadsides 
of  half  the  enemy's  fleet,  while  unforeseen  circumstances  have 
hitherto  prevented,  and  must  yet  for  a  time  prevent,  my  heavier 
ships  of  the  line  from  taking  any  part  in  the  action.  I  watched 
the  first  moment  of  the  struggle  with  some  anxiety  for  the 
solitary  vessel, — an  anxiety  which  I  have  now  ceased  to  feel, —  * 
for  the  flag  of  truth  waves  brightly  through  the  smoke  of  the 
battle,  and  my  antagonists,  wholly  intent  on  the  destruction 
of  the  leading  ship,  have  lost  their  position,  and  exposed  them- 
selves in  defenceless  disorder  to  the  attack  of  the  following 
columns." 

The  enthusiasm  of  a  man  of  genius  appears  to  the  multitude 
like  madness.  The  fervor  of  his  imagination  and  the  intensity 
of  his  emotions,  do,  indeed,  prevent  him  at  tunes  from  per- 
ceiving  clearly,  not  only  what  is  for  his  'own  interest,  but, 
what  he  Avould  more  earnestly  deprecate,  for  the  interest  of 
the  cause  which  he  zealously  advocates.  Thus  was  it  with  the 


XVU1  NOTICE   OF   JOHN    BUSKIN    AND   HIS   WORKS. 

"Giaduate,"  when,  stung  to  the  quick  like  Byron,   jke  bin:, 
he  retorted  upon  the  "  Scotch  Reviewer." 

"  Writers  like  the  present  critic  of  Blackwood's  Magazine 
deserve  the  respect  due  to  honest,  hopeless,  helpless  imbecility 
There  is  something  exalted  in  the  innocence  of  their  feeble 
ndndedness;  one  cannot  suspect  taem  of  partiality,  for  it 
implies  feeling ;  nor  of  prejudice,  for  it  implies  some  previous 
acquaintance  with  their  subject.  I  do  not  know  that  even  in 
this  age  of  charlatanry,  I  could  point  to  a  more  barefaced 
instance  of  imposture  on  the  simplicity  of  the  public,  than 
the  insertion  of  these  pieces  of  criticism  in  a  respectable 
periodical.  We  are  not  insulted  with  opinions  on  music  from 
persons  ignorant  of  its  notes ;  nor  with  treatises  on  philolo-y 
by  persons  unacquainted  with  the  alphabet ;  but  here  is  page 
after  page  of  criticism,  which  one  may  read  from  end  to  end, 
looking  for  something  which  the  author  knows,  and  iimling 
nothing.  Not  his  own  language,  for  he  has  tr>  look  in  his  dic- 
tionary, by  his  own  confession,  for  a  word  (chrysoprase) 
occurring  in  one  of  the  most  important  chapters  of  the 
Bible ;  not  the  commonest  traditions  of  the  schof  Is,  for  he 
does  not  know  why  Poussin  was  called  '  learned  '  not  the 
most  simple  canons  of  art,  for  he  prefers  Lee  to  Gains- 
borough; not  the  most  ordinary  facts  of  Nature,  fcr  we  tind 
him  puzzled  by  the  epithet  '  silver,'  as  applied  to  the  orange- 
blossom — evidently  never  having  seen  anything  silvery  about 
an  orange  in  his  life,  except  a  spoon. 

"  Nay  he  leaves  us  not  to  conjecture  his  calibre  from  internal 
evidence ;  he  candidly  tells  us,  that  he  has  been  studying  trees 
only  for  the  last  week,  and  bases  his  critical  remarks  chiefly  on 
his  practical  experience  of  birch. 

"  What  is  Christopher  North  about  ?  Does  he  receive  his 
critiques  from  Eton  or  Harrow, — based  on  the  experience  of  a 
week's  bird's-nesting  and  its  consequences  ?  How  low  must 
Art  and  its  interests  sink,  when  the  public  mind  is  inadequate 


NO11CE   OF   JOHN   BUSKIN   AND    HIS   WORKS.  XIX 

to  the  detection  of  this  effrontery  of  incapacity.     In  all  kind 
ness  to  Maga,  we  warn  her,  that  though  the  nature  of  this 
work  precludes  us  from  devoting  space  to  the  exposure,  there 
may  come  a  time  when  the  public  shall  be  themselves  able  to 
distinguish   ribaldry  from  reasoning,  and  may  require  some 
better  and  higher  qualifications  in  their  critics  of  art,  than  th 
experience  of  a  school-boy,  and  the  capacities  of  a  buffoon." 

"  Moderation,"  though  subsequently  highly  commended  by 
our  author,  is  not  the  governing  characteristic  of  poets  or  of 
painters,  especially  when  their  "  eyes  are  in  a  fine  frenzy  roll- 
ing" with  either  inspiration  or  anger. 

The  second  volume  of  "  Modern  Painters  "  was  not  issued 
till  the  first  had  passed  through  several  editions.  The  author 
still  chooses  to  appear  only  as  the  "  Graduate  of  Oxford." 

The  main  topic  of  this  second  volume  is  the  nature  of 
Beauty,  and  its  influence  on  the  human  mind. 

Again,  the  novelty  and  boldness  of  the  writer's  views 
startled  and  irritated  the  ice-bound  advocates  of  precedent. 
Though  no  longer  treated  by  the  Reviewers  with  unmitigated 
contempt,  he  was  still  subjected  to  the  lash  of  criticism. 

The  banner,  with  the  defiant  inscription,  Judex  damnatur 
cum  nocens  absolvitur,  was  again  "  hung  out"  at  Edinburgh, 
but  the  "Graduate"  probably  quailed  as  little  before  it  a? 
Birnam  Wood  quailed  before  the  banners  of  Dunsinane 
Howe^  er,  this  second  volume  could  not  fail  to  elicit  warm  and 
earnest  admiration.  The  North  British  Review  pronounced 
it  "  a  very  extraordinary  and  delightful  book,  full  of  trull} 
and  goodness,  of  power  and  beauty,"  and  "what  is  more 
and  better  than  all, — everywhere,  throughout  this  work,  we 
trace  evidences  of  a  deep  reverence  and  a  godly  fear, — a  pet 


XX  NOTICE   OF  JOHN   BUSKIN   AND   HIS   WOEKS. 

petual  though  subdued  acknowledgment  of  the  Almighty,  as 
the  sum  and  substance,  the  beginning  and  the  ending  of  all 
truth,  of  all  power,  of  all  goodness,  and  of  all  beauty." 

Even  the  Edinburgh  Review  was  compelled  to  acknowledge 
"  Modern  Painters"  as  "  one  of  the  most  remarkable  works 
on  art  which  has  appeared  in  our  time." 

Discarding  the  incognito,  the  "  Graduate"  next  appears 
before  the  public  in  a  work  entitled  "  The  Seven  Lamps  of 
Architecture,  by  John  Ruskin,  Author  of  Modern  Painters." 
The  fanciful  title  and  the  reputation  already  acquired  by  the 
author  of  Modern  Painters,  at  once  drew  attention  to  this 
learned  and  philosophical  treatise  on  Architecture.  It  was 
discovered  that  the  works  of  Mr.  Ruskin  "  must  be  read ;" 
they  must  be  discussed ;  they  must  be  "  weighed  and  con- 
sidered." He  had  gained  a  standing-place,  and  possessed 
power  enough  to  move,  if  not  the  world,  at  least  a  portion  of 
its  wisest  and  best. 

Three  other  eloquent  and  beautiful  volumes  on  Architec- 
ture, entitled,  "The  Stones  of  Venice,"  were  issued  from 
time  to  time,  while  the  promised  volumes  to  complete  "  Mo- 
dern Painters"  were  still  delayed.  This  delay  was  chiefly 
owing  to  the  necessity  under  which  the  writer  felt  himself,  of 
obtaining  as  many  memoranda  as  possible  of  medieval  build- 
Inge  in  Italy  and  Normandy,  now  in  process  of  destruction, 
before  that  destruction  should  be  consummated  by  the 
restorer  or  revolutionist.  His  "  whole  time,"  he  says,  "  had 
been  lately  occupied  in  taking  drawings  from  one  side  of 
buildings,  of  which  masons  were  knocking  down  the  other.' 
These  memoranda,  obtained  in  every  case  from  personal 
observation,  had  been  collected  at  various  times  during  seven 


NOTICE   OF   JOHN    BUSKIN   AXD    HIS    WORKS.  XXI 

teen  years.  Not  satisfied,  however,  with  these  occasional 
visits  to  the  sea-girt  city  Mr.  Ruskin  went  again  to  Venice, 
in  1849,  to  examine  not  only  every  one  of  the  older  palaces, 
stone  by  ttone,  but  every  fragment  throughout  the  city 
which  afforded  any  clue  to  the  formation  of  its  styles." 

He  says :  "  My  taking  the  pains  so  to  examine  what  I  had 
to  describe,  was  a  subj  ect  of  grave  surprise  to  my  Italian  friends." 

"  Three  years'  close  and  incessant  labor  to  the  examination 
of  the  chronology  of  the  architecture  of  Venice ;  two  long 
winters  being  wholly  spent  in  the  drawing  of  details  on  the 
spot ;  and  yet  I  see  constantly  that  architects  who  pass  three 
or  four  days  in  a  gondola,  going  up  and  down  the  grand 
canal,  think  that  their  first  impressions  are  as  likely  to  be 
true  as  my  patiently  wrought  conclusions  " 

From  these  careful  studies  and  measurements,  drawings 
were  made  by  Mr.  Ruskin  to  illustrate  "  The  Stones  of  Ve- 
nice," and  afterwards  engraved  in  England  by  the  best 
artists.  Besides  the  fine  illustrations  which  adorn  those  beau- 
tiful volumes,  Mr.  Ruskin  prepared  a  separate  work,  consist- 
ing entirely  of  engravings  from  drawings  which  could  not  bo 
reduced  to  the  size  of  an  octavo  volume,  without  loss  of  accu- 
racy in  detail.  These  magnificent  engravings  were  published 
in  London,  by  subscription,  in  twelve  parts,  folio  imperial 
size,  at  the  price  of  one  guinea  each.  They  were  fac-siinilos 
of  Mr.  Ruskin's  drawings,  and  beautifully  colored.*  The 
"  Seven  Lamps  of  Architecture"  and  "  The  Stones  of  Venice" 

*  All  Mr.  Ruskin's  works,  with  the  exception  of  two  volumes  of  •"  The 
Stones  of  Venice,"  and  theso  large  illustrations,  have  been  published  in 
this  country  by  "Wiley  &  Ilalsted,  Broadway,  New  York. 


XXU  NOTICE    OF   JO  UN    KUSKIN   AND   HIS   WOEKS. 

would  alone  have  placed  Mr.  Ruskin  among  the  very  first 
writers  on  Art  that  England  has  ever  nurtured. 

The  subtle  critic  of  Art  then  turned  aside,  by  way  of  epi- 
sode, and  wrote  a  feuilleton  "  On  J,he  Construction  of  Sheep- 
folds."  Graceful,  picturesque,  rustic  sheepfolds  ?  By  no 
means.  The  versatile  "  Graduate  of  Oxford"  must  give  his 
views  on  a  subject  which  at  that  time  was  agitating  the  minds 
and  employing  the  pens  of  some  of  the  ablest  thinkers  ir 
Great  Britain,  namely,  "  The  Church  ;"  its  character,  author 
Ity,  teaching,  government,  and  discipline.  It  was  a  "  Tract 
tor  the  Times,"  but  in  direct  opposition  to  the  Tracts  of  his 

venerable  alma  mater. 

f 

To  this  bold  pamphlet  was  prefixed  the  following  character- 
istic "  advertisement : " — 

"  Many  persons  will  probably  find  fault  with  me  for  publish- 
ing opinions  which  are  not  new  :  but  I  shall  bear  this  blame 
contentedly,  believing  that  opinions  on  this  subject  could 
hardly  be  just  if  they  were  not  1800  years  old.  Others  will 
blame  me  for  making  proposals  which  are  altogether  new ;  to 
whom  I  would  answer,  that  things  in  these  days  seem  not 
so  far  right  but  that  they  may  be  mended.  And  others 
will  simply  call  the  opinions  false  and  the  proposals  foolish — 
to  whose  good  will,  if  they  take  it  in  hand  to  contradict  me, 
I  must  leave  what  I  have  written, — having  no  purpose  of 
being  drawn,  at  present,  into  religious  controversy.  If,  how- 
ever, any  should  admit  the  truth,  but  regret  the  tone  of  what 
I  have  said,  I  can  only  pray  them  to  consider  how  much  less 
harm  is  done  in  'the  world  by  ur  graceful  boldness,  than  by 
untimely  fear." 

Whatever  were  the  "  opinions"  thus  promulgated,  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that  the  author's  motive  was  a  sincere,  earnest 
desire  to  do  good. 


M  NOTICE   OF   JOHN   RUSKIN   AND   HIS   WORKS. 

Another  pamphlet  from  the  same  prolific  pen,  entitled 
"  Pre-Raphaelitism,"  caused  great  excitement  among  the 
artists,  as  well  as  the  critics. 

At  the  close  of  the  first  volume  of  Modern  Painters,  Mr 
Ruskin  gave  the  following  advice  to  the  young  artists  of 
England : — "  They  should  go  to  nature  in  all  singleness  of 
heart,  and  walk  with  her  laboriously  and  trustingly,  having  no 
other  thought  but  how  best  to  penetrate  her  meaning;  reject- 
ing nothing,  selecting  nothing,  and  scorning  nothing. '  This 
he  quotes  in  the  Preface  to  his  Pre-Raphaelitism,  and  says, — 

"  Advice  which,  whether  bad  or  good,  involved  infinite. labor 
and  humiliation  in  the  following  it ;  and  was  therefore,  for 
the  most  part,  rejected.  It  has,  however,  been  carried  out, 
to  the  very  letter,  by  a  group  of  men  who,  for  their  reward, 
have  been  assailed  with  the  most  scurrilous  abuse  which  I  ever 
recollect  seeing  issue  from  the  pubh'c  press.  I  have,  there- 
fore, thought  it  due  to  them  (the  Pre-Raphaelites)  to  contra- 
dict the  directly  false  statements  which  have  been  made 
respecting  their  works ;  and  to  point  out  the  kind  of  merit 
which,  however  deficient  in  some  respects,  those  works  possess 
beyond  the  possibility  of  dispute." 

Mr.  Ruskin  here  says  no  more  than  Schiller  had  said  before 
him: — 

"  With  genius,  Nature  is  bound  in  eternal  alliance,— 
Whatever  mind  has  vowed,  piously  Nature  performs." 

fhen  why  was  the  hue  and  cry  raised  against  his  "Pre- 
rlaphaelitism?"  Sneers  are  not  arguments.  For  the  want 
)f  arguments  was  the  Reviewer  reduced  to  the  following 
absurdity : — "  If  there  were  a  '  Burchell'  among  painters,  lie 
would  in  the  author's  presence,  cry  Fudge !  Nonsense  1" 


XXIV  NOTICE   OF   JOIIN   RUSKIN  AND   HIS   WORKS.  „ 

This  would-be  astute  critic,  however,  like  many  who  had 
gone  before  him,  cried  "  mad  dogv  in  vain.  Mr.  Ruskin  still 
lives. 

The  third  volume  of  Modern  Painters  was  issued  ten  years 
after  the  publication  of  the  tAvo  first  volumes.  Those  two 
volumes,  as  has  already  been  mentioned,  were  written  to  check 
the  attacks  upon  Turner.  Little  did  the  "Graduate"  then 
foresee  what  a  range  his  spirit  would  take,  after  its  first 
venturous  flight ! 

"  The  chcele  was  p.irtisilly  given,  but  too  late ;  Turner  was 
seized' by  painful  illness  soon  after  the  second  volume  appeared ; 
his  works  towards  the  close  of  the  year  1845,  showed  a  conclu- 
sive failure  of  power ;  and  I  saw  that  nothing  remained  for 
me  to  write,  but  his  epitaph." 

No  one  can  fail  to  admire  the  generous,  enthusiastic  devo- 
tion of  Mr.  Ruskin  to  his  favorite  artist ;  but,  as  few  of 
Turner's  paintings  have  reached  this  country,  his  eloquent 
descriptions  of  them,  and  subtle  criticisms,  would  not  be 
generally  interesting,  and  have  therefore  been  omitted  in  the 
"  Selections"  from  his  Works. 

Engravings,  however,  from  many  of  Turner's  pictures  are 
u-ell  known  among  us,  and  highly  prized  by  genuine  lovers  of 
the  Beautiful.     Among  these  engravings  the  Illustrations  t. 
Rogers's  Italy  have  been  universally  admired. 

In  November,  1853,  Mr.  Ruskin  delivered  four  Lectures  in 
Edinburgh,  onvArchitecture  and  Painting ;  which  have  since 
been  published  in  a  beautifully  illustrated  volume. 

He  thought  himself  happy,  he  says,  in  his  first  Lecture,  <o 
address  the  citizens  of  Edinburgh  on  the  subject  of  Architeo 


NOTICE    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN   AND    HIS    WORKS.  XXV 

tare ;  and  yet,  with  his  usual  boldness  and  disregard  of  cuu- 
sequences  to  himself  personally,  he  launched  forth  into  a  com 

» 

plete  tirade  against  the  Greek  Architecture  of  that  beautiful 
city.  No  doubt  Mr.  Ruskin  remembered  with  some  asperity 
the  castigations  of  the  Edinburgh  Reviewers,  and  knowing 
that  he  was  now  strong  enough  to  chastise  the  chastisers,  he 
laid  it  on  without  mercy.  Yet  he  is  too  earnest  and  too 
honest  a  man  to  say  one  word  that  he  does  not  firmly  believe 
to  be  for  the  advancement  of  noble  Art. 

The  Fourth  Volume  of  "  Modern  Painters"  is  one  of  his 
ablest  works.  His  versatile  mind  here  grapples  with  Science 
as  successfully  as  it  has  hitherto  done  with  Art.  Among  the 
Alps  and  their  glaciers,  he  would  have  been  a  fit  companion 
for  the  learned  Guyot. 

In  pursuit  of  his  investigations  he  had  stood  "  where  the 
black  thundercloud  was  literally  dashing  itself  in  his  face, 
while  the  blue  hills  seen  through  its  rents  were  thirty  miles 
away." 

Indefatigable  in  the  pursuit  of  that  branch  of  Art,  which 
"in  all  liis  lovings  is  the  love,"  Mi-.  Ruskin  has  lately  wiitten 
a  book  for  young  persons,  entitled,  "  The  Elements  of  Draw- 
ing, in  three  Letters  to  Beginners."  He  always  writes  con 
amore,  but  never  more  so  than  in  this  valuable  little  treatise. 
Mr.  Ruskin  is  not  only  a  practical  artist,  but  he  has  also  had 
much  experience  in  teaching,  being  employed  at  present  as 
head-teacher  of  a  class  in  Drawing,  in  the  Working  Men's 
College,  45  Great  Ormond  Street,  London. 

"  The  Political  Economy  of  Art,"  the  last  published  work 
by  Mr.  Ruskin,  is  the  substance  (with  additions)  of  two 
Lectures  delivered  at  Manchester,  July  10th  and  13th,  1857 


JTXV1  NOTICE   OF   JOHN    RUSKIX   AND    HIS   WORKS. 

The  great  "  Art  Treasures  Exhibition,"  at  Manchester,  had 
brought  together  a  splendid  collection  of  pictures  from  the 
galleries,  public  and  private,  of  the  British  kingdom,  and  it 
w  is  a  fine  opportunity  for  Mr.  Ruskin  to  address  the  lovers 
of  art  in  behalf  of  artists  and  working-men.  He  did  so,  with 
u'isdom,  justice,  and  deep  feeling ;  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  the 
influence  of  those  lectures  will  not  be  confined  to  his  own 
country. 

As  a  Christian  Philosopher,  Mr.  Ruskin  deservedly  ranks 
with  the  "judicious"  Hooker,  the  eloquent  Jeremy  Taylor, 
and  the  "divine"  Herbert.  A  devout  spirit  animates  and 
inspires  all  his  works.  In  the  lowly  cottage  and  the  lofty 
cathedral,  in  the  smiling  valley  and  in  the  sublime  mountain- 
top,  he  has  an  ever-realizing  sense  of  the  presence  of  God ; 
and  acknowledges  that  divine  presence,  not  with  light  words, 
but  with  words  of  solemn  import ; — not  as  the  God  of  Nature 
alone,  but  as  the  Almighty  Father  and  Friend  revealed  in  the 
life-giving  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ. 

The  most  striking  characteristic  of  Mr.  Ruskin,  next  to  his 
deep  religious  sentiments,  is  his  intense  love  of  Nature  : — 

"Where  rose  the  mountains,  these  to  him  were  friends; 

Where  rolled  the  ocean,  thereon  was  his  home; 
Where  a  blue  sky  and  glowing  clime  extends, 

He  had  the  passion  and  the  power  to  roam; 
The  desert,  forest,  cavern,  breaker's  foam, 

Were  unto  him  companionship;  they  spoke 
A  mutnal  language,  clearer  than  the  tome 

Of  his  land's  tongue,  which  he  would  oft  forsako 
For  Nature's  pages,  glassed  by  sunbeams  on  the  lake," 


NOTICE   OF   JOHN    BUSKIN    AND    HIS   WOE£S.  XXV11 

Mr.  Raskin  furnishes  his  readers  with  a  lens  through  which 
all  natural  objects  are  glorified ;  the  sky  assumes  new  beauty 
— the  clouds  are  decked  with  wondrous  magnificence, — and 
even  each  individual  tree  excites  curiosity  and  intense  admira- 
tion.  As  he  exults  over  them,  we  are  ready  to  exclaim,  with 
one  of  our  own  eloquent  writers, — "What  a  thought  that 
was,  when  God  thought  of  a  tree !" 

It  is  a  rare  and  delightful  privilege  to  kiiow  exactly  how  the 
love  of  the  Beautiful  in  Nature  has  been  developed  in  any 
one  human  being ;  more  especially  in  a  many-sided  being, 
such  as  John  Ruskin.  He  has  himself  given  us  this  privilege, 
ror  which  we  owe  him  many  thanks,  in  the  following  charming 
morsel  of  philosophical  autobiography : 

"  I  cannot,  from  observation,  form  any  decided  opinion  as  to 
the  extent  in  which  this  strange  delight  in  nature  influences 
the  hearts  of  young  persons  in  general ;  and,  in  stating  what 
has  passed  in  my  own  mind,  I  do  not  mean  to  draw  any  posi- 
tive conclusion  as  to  the  nature  of  the  feeling  in  other  children ; 
but  the  inquiry  is  clearly  one  in  which  personal  experience  is 
the  only  safe  ground  to  go  upon,  though  a  narrow  one ;  and  I 
will  make  no  excuse  for  talking  about  myself  with  reference 
to  this  subject,  because,  though  there  is  much  egotism  in  the 
world,  it  is  often  the  last  thing  a  man  thinks  of  doing, — and, 
though  there  is  much  work  to  be  done  in  the  world,  it  is  often 
the  best  thing  a  man  can  do, — to  tell  the  exact  truth  about 
the  movements  of  his  own  mind ;  and  there  is  this  farther  rea 
son,  that,  whatever  other  faculties  I  may  or  may  not  possess,  this 
gift  of  taking  pleasure  in  landscape  I  assuredly  possess  in  a 
greater  degree  than  most  men ;  it  having  been  the  ruling  pas> 
sion  of  my  life,  and  the  reason  for  the  choice  of  its  field  of 
labor. 


XXVU1  NOTICE   OF   JOHN   BUSKIN    AND   HIS   WOSKS. 

"The  first  thing  which  I  remember  as  an  evei.it  in  life,  was 
being  taken  by  my  nurse  to  the  brow  of  Friar's  Crag  on  Der- 
wentwater;  the  intense  joy,  mingled  with  awe,  that  I  had  in 
looking  through  the  hollows  in  the  mossy  roots,  over  the  crag, 
into  the  dark  lake,  has  associated  itself  more  or  less  with  all 
twining  roots  of  trees  ever  since.  Two  other  things  I  remem- 
ber, as,  in  a  sort,  beginnings  of  life ; — crossing  Shapfells  (being 
let  out  of  the  chaise  to  run  up  the  hills),  and  going  through 
Glenfarg,  near  Kinross,  in  a  winter's  morning,  when  the  rocks 
were  hung  with  icicles ;  these  being  culminating  points  in  an 
early  life  of  more  travelling  than  is  usually  indulged  to  a  child. 
In  such  journeyings,  whenever  they  brought  me  near  hills,  and 
in  all  mountain  ground  and  scenery,  I  had  a  pleasure,  as  early 
as  I  can  remember,  and  continuing  till  I  was  eighteen  or 
twenty,  infinitely  greater  than  any  which  has  been  since  possi- 
ble to  me  in  anything ;  comparable  for  intensity  only  to  the 
joy  of  a  lover  in  being  near  a  noble  and  kind  mistress,  but  no 
more  explicable  or  definable  than  that  feeling  of  love  itself. 
Only  thus  much  I  can  remember,  respecting  it,  which  is 
important  to  our  present  subject. 

"First:  it  was  never  independent  of  associated  thought. 
Almost  as  soon  as  I  could  see  or  hear,  I  had  got  reading 
enough  to  give  me  associations  with  all  kinds  of  scenery ;  and 
mountains,  hi  particular,  were  always  partly  confused  with 
those  of  my  favorite  book,  Scott's  Monastery;  so  that  Glen- 
farg and  all  other  glens  were  more  or  less  enchanted  to  me. 
filled  with  forms  of  hesitating  creed  about  Christie  of  the  Clint 
Hill,  and  the  monk  Eustace ;  and  with  a  general  presence  of 
White  Lady  everywhere.  I  also  generally  knew,  or  was  told 
by  my  father  and  mother,  such  simple  facts  of  history  as  were, 
necessary  to  give  more  definite  and  justifiable  association  to 
other  scenes  which  chiefly  interested  me,  such  as  the  ruins  of 
Lochleven  and  Kenilworth ;  and  thus  my  pleasure  in  moun- 
tains or  ruins  was  never,  even  in  earliest  childhood,  free  from 
a  certain  awe  and  melancholy,  and  general  senso  of  the  mean 


NOTICE    OF   JOHN    RUSKIN    AND    HIS    WORKS.  XXIX 

Ing  ^f  death,  though  in  its  principal  influence  entirely  exhiliv- 
rating  and  gladdening. 

"  Secondly :  it  was  partly  dependent  on  contrast  with  a  ve/y 
simple  and  unamused  mode  of  general  life ;  I  was  born  in  Lon- 
don, and  accustomed,  for  two  or  three  years,  to  no  other  pros 
pect  than  that  of  the  brick  walls  over  the  way ;  had  nc 
brothers,  nor  sisters,  nor  companions;  and  though  I  could 
always  make  myself  happy  in  a  quiet  way,  the  beauty  of  the 
mountains  had  an  additional  charm  of  change  and  adventure 
which  a  country-bred  child  would  not  have  felt. 

"Ihirdly:  there  was  no  definite  religious  feeling  mingled 
with  it.  I  partly  believed  in  ghosts  and  fairies ;  but  supposed 
that  angels  belonged  entirely  to  the  Mosaic  dispensation,  and 
caupot  remember  any  single  thought  or  feeling  connected 
with  them.  I  believed  that  God  was  in  heaven,  and  could 
hear  me  and  see  me ;  but  this  gave  me  neither  pleasure  nor 
pain,  and  I  seldom  thought  of  it  at  all.  I  never  thought 
of  nature  as  God's  work,  but  as  a  separate  fact  or  existence. 

"  fourthly :  it  was  entirely  unaccompanied  by  powers  of 
refle-'tion  or  invention.  Every  fancy  that  I  had  about  nature 
was  put  into  my  head  by  some  book ;  and  I  never  reflected 
about  anything  till  I  grew  older;  and  then,  the  more  I 
reflected,  the  less  nature  was  precious  to  me :  I  could  then 
make  myself  happy,  by  thinking,  in  the  dark,  or  in  the  dullest 
scenery ;  and  the  beautiful  scenery  became  less  essential  to  my 
pleasure. 

"  Fifthly :  it  was,  according  to  its  strength,  inconsistent  wit-i 
every  evil  feeling,  with  spite,  anger,  covetousness,  discontent, 
and  *wery  other  hateful  passion ;  but  would  associate  itself 
deeply  with  every  just  and  noble  sorrow,  joy,  or  affection.  It 
had  not,  however,  always  the  power  to  repress  what  was  incon- 
sistent with  it ;  and,  thojugh  only  after  stout  contention,  might 
at  last  be  crushed  by  what  it  had  partly  repressed.  And  as  it 
only  acted  by  setting  one  impulse  against  another,  though  it 
had  much  power  in  moulding  the  character,  it  had  hardly  any 


XXX  NOTICE   OF   JOHN   RUSKIN   AND    HIS   WORKS. 

in  strengthening  it ;  it  formed  temperament,  but  never  instil  ed 
principle;  it  kept  me  generally  good-humored  and  kindly,  but 
could  not  teach  me  perseverance  or  self-denial :  what  firmnes? 
or  principle  I  had  was  quite  independent  of  it ;  and  it  came 
itself  nearly  as  often  ha  the  form  of  a  temptation  as  of  a  safe- 
guard, leading  me  to  ramble  over  hills  when  I  should  have 
been  learning  lessons,  and  lose  days  hi  reveries  which  I  might 
have  spent  hi  doing  kindnesses. 

"  Lastly :  although  there  was  no  definite  religious  sentiment 
mingled  with  it,  there  was  a  continual  perception  of  Sanctity 
in  the  whole  of  nature,  from  the  slightest  tiling  to  the  vastest ; 
— an  instinctive  awe,  mixed  with  delight ;  an  indefinable  thrill, 
such  as  we  sometimes  imagine  to  indicate  the  presence  of  a 
disembodied  spirit.  I  could  only  feel  this  perfectly  when  1 
was  alone ;  and  then  it  would  often  make  me  shiver  from  head 
to  foot  with  the  joy  and  fear  of  it,  when  after  being  some  time 
away  from  the  hills,  I  first  got  to  the  shore  of  a  mountain 
river,  where  the  brown  water  circled  among  the  pebbles,  or 
when  I  saw  the  first  swell  of  distant  land  against  the  sunset, 
or  the  first  low  broken  wall,  covered  Avith  mountain  moss.  1 
cannot  in  the  least  describe  the  feeling:  but  I  do  not  tbmk 
this  is  my  fault,  nor  that  of  the  English  language,  for,  I  am 
nfraid,  no  feeling  is  describable.  If  we  had  to  explain  even 
Uhe  sense  of  bodily  hunger  to  a  person  who  had  never  felt  it, 
we  should  be  hard  put  to  it  for  words ;  and  this  joy  in  nature 
seemed  to  me  to  come  of  a  sort  of  heart-hunger,  satisfied  witb 
the  presence  of  a  Great  and  Holy  Spirit.  These  feelings 
remained  in  their  full  intensity  till  I  was  eighteen  or  twenty, 
and  then,  as  the  reflective  and  practical  power  increased,  nnti 
the  'cares  of  this  world'  gained  upon  me,  faded  gradually 
away,  in  the  manner  described  by  Wordsworth  in  his  Intima 
tions  of  Immortality." 

Happily  for  the  world,  these  emotions  or  "  feelings,"  became 
enthroned  in  the  Intellect  of  Ruskin. 


NOTICE    OF   JOHN   KUSKIX    AND    HIS    WORKS.  XXXI 

"  He  who  feels  Beauty,  but  cannot  intellectually  recognise 
it,  is  ever  dej  endent  for  this  most  joyous  of  emotions  upon  the 
vernal  freshness  of  his  senses ;  and  as  these  grow  dull,  as  youth 
flits  past,  the  emotion  of  the  beautiful  gradually  becomes  a 
thing  unknown.  It  is  only  through  feeling  that  aesthetic  emo- 
tion can  touch  such  an  one ;  and  how  soon,  alas !  does  this 
medium  between  man  and  nature,  between  the  soul  and  exter- 
nal things  grow  sluggish  and  torpid!  But  with  him  who 
has  learned  to  know  as  well  as  to  feel — ichose  soul  is  one  dear 
sJcy  of  intelligence, — the  case  is  far  otherwise.  Intellect 
brightens  as  the  senses  grow  dull ;  and  though  the  sensuous 
imagination  pass  into  the  yellow  leaf  as  the  autumn  of  li/e 
draws  on,  still  will  the  Beautiful,  having  secured  for  itself  a 
retreat  in  the  intellect,  naturally  pass  into  immortality  along 
with  it.  An.  old  man,  with  closed  eyes  and  flowing  hair, 
would  again,  as  in  the  days  of  ancient  Greece,  form  the  idea« 
of  a  poet ;  and  the  taste  of  the  age  of  Pericles^  enlightened  by 
modern  philosophy,  and  purified  by  Christianity,  might  again 
return." 

A  higher  aim  even  than  this  will,  we  trust,  be  attempted 
in  our  own  country.  True ;  Art  is  here  yet  in  its  infanc." 
Its  healthful,  vigorous  growth  and  development,  will  depcnu 
mainly  upon  the  general  cultivation  of  a  correct  Taste.  "We 
cannot  expect  our  Artists  to  pursue  high  and  noble  aims  until 
the  standard  of  Taste  is  proportionably  elevated. 

For  the  study  of  nature, — the  inseparable  ally  of  Art, — no 
finer  field  can  be  found  on  the  wide  earth,  than  our  own  wide 
country; — and  no  better  guide  and  interpreter,  than  JOHN 
RUSK.IN. 

L.  C.  T. 


fart  1. 
A.  TJ  T  Y 


Scatter  diligently  in  susceptible  minds 
The  germs  of  the  good  and  the  beautiful 
They  will  develope  there  to  trees,  bud,  bloom. 
And  bear  the  golden  fruits  of  Paradise. 


JJart  1. 

BEAUTY. 

ANY  material  object  which  can  give  us  pleasure  in  the  simple 
contemplation  of  it?  outward  qualities,  without  any  direct  and 
definite  exertion  of  the  intellect,  I  call  in  some  way,  or  in  some 
degree,  beautiful.  Why  we  receive  pleasure  from  some  forms 
and  colors,  and  not  from  others,  is  no  more  to  be  asked  or 
answered  than  why  we  like  sugar  and  dislike  wormwood.  The 
utmost  subtilty  of  investigation  will  only  lead  us  to  ultimate 
instincts  and  principles  of  human  nature,  for  which  no  further 
reason  can  be  given  than  the  simple  will  of  the  Deity  that  we 
should  be  so  created.  We  may,  indeed,  perceive,  as  far  as  we  are 
acquainted  wHh  His  nature,  that  we  have  been  so  constructed 
as,  when  in  a  nealthy  and  cultivated  state  of  mind,  to  derive 
pleasure  from  whatever  things  are  illustrative  of  that  nature ; 
but  we  do  not  receive  pleasure  from  them  because  they  are 
illustrative  of  it,  nor  from  any  perception  that  they  are  illus- 
trative of  it,  but  instinctively  and  necessarily,  as  we  derive 
sensual  pleasure  from  the  scent  of  a  rose.  On  these  primary 
principles  of  our  nature,  education  and  accident  operate  to  an 
unlimited  extent ;  they  may  be  cultivated  or  checked,  directed 
or  diverted,  gifted  by  right  guidance  with  the  most  acute  and 
faultless  sense,  or  subjected  by  neglect  to  eveiy  phase  of  error 
and  disease.  He  who  has  followed  up  these  natural  laws  of 
aversion  and  desire,  rendering  them  more  and  more  authorita- 
tive by  constant  obedience,  so  as  to  derive  pleasure  always  from 
that  which  God  originally  intended  should  give  him  pleasure, 


BEAUTY. 

and  who  derives  the  greatest  possible  emu  of  pleasure  from  i 
any  given  object,  is  a  man  of  taste. 

This,  then,  is  the  real  meaning  of  this  disputed  word.  Per- 
fect taste  is  the  faculty  of  receiving  the  greatest  possible 
pleasure  from  those  material  sources  which  are  attractive  to 
our  moral  nature  in  its  purity  and  perfection.  He  who  receives 
little  pleasure  from  these  sources,  wants  taste  ;  he  who  receives 
pleasure  from  any  other  sources,  has  false  or  bad  taste. 

And  it  is  thus  that  the  term  "  taste"  is  to  be  distinguished 
fiom  that  of  "judgment,"  with  which  it  is  constantly  con- 
founded. Judgment  is  a  general  term,  expressing  definite 
action  of  the  intellect,  and  applicable  to  every  kind  of  subject 
which  can  be  submitted  to  it.  There  may  be  judgment  of 
con gruity,  judgment  of  truth,  judgment  of  justice,  and  judg- 
ment of  difficulty  and  excellence.  But  all  these  exertions  of 
intellect  are  totally  distinct  from  taste,  properly  so  called, 
which  is  the  instinctive  and  instant  preferring  of  one  material 
object  to  another  without  any  obvious  reason,  that  it  is  proper 
to  human  nature  in  its  perfection  so  to  do. 

Observe,  however,  I  do  not  mean  by  excluding  direct  exer- 
tion of  the  intellect  from  ideas  of  beauty,  that  beauty  has  no 
effect  upon  nor  connexion  with  the  intellect.  All  our  moral 
feelings  are  so  inwoven  with  our  intellectual  powers,  that  we 
cannot  affect  the  one  without,  in  some  degree,  addressing  the 
other  ;  and  in  all  high  ideas  of  beauty  it  is  more  than  proba- 
ble that  much  of  the  pleasure  depends  on  delicate  and  untrace- 
able  perceptions  of  fitness,  propriety,  and  relation,  which  arc 
purely  intellectual,  and  through  which  we  arrive  at  our  noblest 
ideas  of  what  is  commonly  and  rightly  called  "intellectual 
beauty."  But  there  is  yet  no  immediate  exertion  of  the  intel- 
lect ;  that  is  to  say,  it'  a  person,  receiving  even  the  noblest 
ideas  of  simple  beauty,  be  asked  why  lie  likes  the  object  excit- 
ing them,  he  will  not  be  able  to  give  any  distinct  reason,  nor 


BEAUTY.  5 

to  trace  in  Ins  mind  any  formal  thought  to  which  he  can 
appeal  as  a  source  of  pleasure.  He  will  say  that  the  thing 
gratifies,  fills,  hallows,  exalts  his  mind,  but  he  will  not  be  able 
to  say  why,  or  how.  If  he  can,  and  if  he  can  show  that  he 
perceives  in  the  object  any  expression  of  distinct  thought,  he 
has  received  more  than  an  idea  of  beauty — it  is  an  idea  of 
relation. 

By  the  term  ideas  of  relation,  I  mean  to  express  till 
those  sources  of  pleasure  which  involve  and  require,  at  the 
instant  of  their  perception,  active  exertion  of  the  intellectual 
powers. 

The  sensation  of  Beauty  is  not  sensual  on  the  one  hand,  nor 
is  it  intellectual  on  the  other,  but  is  dependent  on  a  pure,  right, 
and  open  state  of  the  heart,  both  for  its  truth  and  its  inten- 
sity, insomuch  that  even  the  right  after-action  of  the  intellect 
upon  facts  of  beauty  so  apprehended,  is  dependent  on  the 
icuteness  of  the  heart-feeling  about  them  ;  and  thus  the  apos- 
tolic words  come  true,  in  this  minor  respect  as  in  all  others, 
that  men  are  alienated  from  the  life  of  God,  "  through  the 
ignorance  that  is  in  them,  having  the  understanding  darkened, 
because  of  the  hardness  of  their  hearts,  and  so  being  past 
feeling,  give  themselves  up  to  lasciviousness ;"  for  we  do 
indeed  see  constantly  that  men  having  naturally  acute  percep 
tions  of  the  beautiful,  yet  not  receiving  it  with  a  pure  heart, 
nor  into  their  hearts  at  all,  never  comprehend  it,  nor  receive 
good  from  it,  but  make  it  a  mere  minister  to  their  desires, 
and  accompaniment  and  seasoning  of  lower  sensual  pleasures, 
until  all  their  emotions  take  the  same  earthly  stamp,  and  the 
sense  of  beauty  sinks  into  the  servant  of  lust. 

Xor  is  what  the  world  commonly  understands  by  the  culti- 
vation of  taste,  anything  more  or  better  than  this,  at  least  in 
times  of  corrupt  and  over-pampered  civilization,  when  men 
build  palaces,  and  plant  groves,  and  gather  luxuries,  that  they 


8  BEAUTY. 

and  their  devices  may  hang  in  the  corners  of  the  world  like 
fine-spun  cobwebs,  with  greedy,  puffed  up,  spider-like  lusts  hi 
the  middle.  And  this,  which  in  Christian  times  is  the  abuse 
and  corruption  of  the  sense  of  beauty,  was  in  that  Pagan  life 
of  which  St.  Paul  speaks  little  less  than  the  essence  of  it,  and 
the  best  they  had ;  for  I  know  not  that  of  the  expressions  of 
affection  towards  external  Nature  to  be  found  among  Heathen 
writers,  there  are  any  of  which  the  balance  and  leading  thought 
cleaves  not  towards  the  sensual  parts  of  her.  Her  benefi- 
cence they  sought,  and  her  power  they  shunned ;  her  teaching 
through  both  they  understood  never.  The  pleasant  influences 
of  soft  winds,  and  singing  streamlets,  and  shady  coverts,  of  the 
violet  couch  and  plane-tree  shade,  they  received,  perhaps,  in  a 
more  noble  way  than  we,  but  they  found  not  anything  except 
fear,  upon  the  bare  mountain  or  in  the  ghastly  glen.  The 
Hybla  heather  they  loved  more  for  its  sweet  hives  than  its 
purple  hues.  But  the  Christian  theoria  seeks  not,  though  it 
accepts,  and  touches  with  its  own  purity,  what  the  Epicurean 
sought,  but  finds  its  food  and  the  objects  of  its  love  every- 
where, in  what  is  harsh  and  fearful,  as  well  as  what  is  kind, 
nay  even  in  all  that  seems  coarse  and  common-place ;  seizing 
that  which  is  good,  and  delighting  more  sometimes  at  finding 
its  table  spread  in  strange  places,  and  in  the  presence  of  its 
enemies,  and  its  honey  coming  out  of  the  rock,  than  if  all 
were  harmonized  into  a  less  wondrous  pleasure  ;  hating  only 
what  is  self-sighted  and  insolent  of  men's  work,  despising  all 
that  is  not  of  God;  yet  able  to  find  evidence  of  Him  still, 
where  all  seems  forgetful  of  Him,  and  to  turn  that  into  a  wit- 
ness of  His  working  which  was  meant  to  obscure  it,  and  so 
with  clear  and  unoffending  sight  beholding  Him  for  ever, 
according  to  the  written  promise, — "  JJlessed  are  the  pure  in 
heart,  for  they  shall  see  God." 

Ideas  of  Beauty  are  among  the  noblest  which  can  be  pre- 


BEAUTY.  f 

seuted  to  the  Luman  mind,  invariably  exalting  *nd  purifying 
it  according  to  their  degree;  and  it  would  appear  that  we  are 
intended  by  the  Deity  to  be  constantly  under  their  influence, 
because  there  is  not  one  single  object  in  nature  which  is  not 
capable  of  conveying  them,  and  which,  to  the  rightly  perceiv- 
ing mind,  does  not  present  an  incalculably  greater  number  of 
beautiful,  than  of  deformed  parts ;  there  being  in  fact  scarcely 
anything,  in  pure,  undiseased  Xature,  like  positive  deformity, 
but  only  degrees  of  beauty,  or  such  slight  and  rare  points  of 
permitted  contrast  as  may  render  all  around  them  more  valu- 
able by  their  opposition;  spots  of  blackness  in  creation,  to 
make  its  colors  felt.  But  although  everything  in  Nature  is 
more  or  less  beautiful,  every  species  of  object  has  its  own 
kind  and  degree  of  beauty ;  some  being  in  their  own  nature 
more  beautiful  than  others,  and  few,  if  any  individuals,  possess 
ing  the  utmost  beauty  of  which  the  species  is  capable.  Thia 
utmost  degree  of  specific  beaiity,  necessarily  co-existent  with 
the  utmost  perfection  of  the  object  in  other  respects,  is  the 
ideal  of  the  object. 

We  must  be  modest  and  cautious  in  the  pronouncing  of 
positive  opinions  on  the  subject  of  beauty;  for  every  one  of 
us  has  peculiar  sources  of  enjoyment  necessarily  opened  to 
him  in  certain  scenes  and  things,  sources  which  are  sealed  to 
others ;  and  we  must  be  Avary,  on  the  one  hand,  of  confounding 
these  in  ourselves  with  ultimate  conclusions  of  taste,  and  so 
forcing  them  upon  all  as  authoritative ;  and  on  the  other,  of 
supposing  that  the  enjoyments,  which  we  cannot  share,  are 
shallow  or  unwarrantable,  because  incommunicable.  By  the 
term  Beauty,  two  things  are  signified;  First,  that  external 
quality  of  bodies  which  may  be  shown  to  be  in  some  sort 
typical  of  the  Divine  attributes,  and  which,  therefore,  I  shall 
for  distinction's  sake  call  typical  beauty;  and  second,  the 


8  BEAUTY. 

appearance  of  felicitous  fulfilment  of  functions  in  many  things, 
and  this  I  shall  call  vital  beauty. 

Let  us  briefly  distinguish  those  qualities,  or  types,  on 
whose  combination  is  dependent  the  power  of  mere  material 
lovelimss.  I  pretend  neither  to  enumerate  nor  to  perceive 
them  all;  yet  certain  powerful  and  palpable  modes  there  are, 
by  observing  which,  we  may  come  at  such  general  conclusions 
on  the  subject  as  may  be  practically  useful. 

1 .  Infinity,  or  the  type  of  Divine  Incomprehensibility. 

2.  Unity,  or  the  type  of  the  Divine  Comprehensiveness. 

3.  Repose,  or  the  type  of  the  Divine  Permanence. 

4.  Symmetry,  or  the  type  of  the  Divine  Justice. 

5.  Purity,  or  the  type  of  Divine  Energy. 

6.  Moderation,  or  the  type  of  Government  by  Law. 


i. — INFINITY. 

Heaven  lies  about  us  in  our  infancy, — 

Shades  of  the  prison-house  begin  to  close 

Upon  the  growing  boy. 

But  he  beholds  the  light,  and  whence  it  flows, 

He  sees  it  in  his  joy. 

The  youth,  who  daily  farther  from  the  east 

Must  travel,  still  is  nature's  priest, 

And  by  the  vision  splendid 

la  on  his  way  attended. 

At  length  the  man  perceives  it  die  away, 

And  fade  into  the  light  of  common  day 

One,  however,  of  those  child  instincts,  I  believe  that  few  for- 
get ,  the  emotion,  namely,  caused  by  all  open  ground,  or  lines 
of  any  spacious  kind  against  the  sky,  behind  which  there  might 
be  conceived  the  sea. 


INFINITY. 

Whatever  beauty  there  may  result  from  effects  of  light  on 
foreground  objects,  from  the  dew  of  the  grass,  the  flash  of  the 
cascade,  the  glitter  of  the  birch  trunk,  or  the  fair  daylight  hue? 
of  darker  things  (and  joyfuluess  there  is  in  all  of  them),  there 
is  yet  a  light  which  the  eye  invariably  seeks  with  a  deeper 
feeling  of  the  beautiful,  the  light  of  the  declining  or  breaking 
day,  and  the  flakes  of  scarlet  cloud  burning  like  watch-fires  in 
the  green  sky  of  the  horizon ;  a  deeper  feeling,  I  say,  not  perhaps 
more  acute,  but  having  more  of  spiritual  hope  and  longing,  less 
of  animal  and  present  life,  more  manifest,  invariably,  in  those 
of  more  serious  and  determined  mind  (I  use  the  word  serious, 
not  as  being  opposed  to  cheerful,  but  to  trivial  and  volatile) ; 
but,  I  think,  marked  and  unfailing  even  in  those  of  the  least 
thoughtful  dispositions.  I  am  willing  to  let  it  rest  on  the 
determination  of  every  reader,  whether  the  pleasure  which  he 
has  received  from  these  effects  of  calm  and  luminous  distance 
be  not  the  most  singular  and  memorable  of  which  he  has  been 
conscious;  whether  all  that  is  dazzling  in  color,  perfect  in  form, 
gladdening  in  expression,  be  not  of  evanescent  and  shallow 
appealing,  when  compared  with  the  still  small  voice  of  the  level 
twilight  behind  purple  hills,  or  the  scarlet  arch  of  dawn  over 
the  dark,  troublous-edged  sea. 

Let  us  try  to  discover  that  which  effects  of  this  kind  possess 
or  suggest,  peculiar  to  themselves,  and  which  other  effects  of 
light  and  color  possess  not.  There  must  be  something  in  them 
of  a  peculiar  character,  and  that,  whatever  it  be,  must  be  one  of 
the  primal  and  most  earnest  motives  of  beauty  to  human 
sensation. 

Do  they  show  finer  characters  of  form  than  can  be  developed 
by  the  broader  daylight  ?  Xot  so ;  for  their  power  is  almost 
independent  of  the  forms  they  assume  or  display;  it  matters 
little  whether  the  bright  clouds  be  simple  or  manifold,  whether 
the  mountain  line  be  subdued  or  majestic;  the  fairer  forms  of 

1* 


10  BEAITY. 

earthly  things  are  by  them  subdued  and  disguised,  the  round 
and  muscular  growth  of  the  forest  trunks  is  sunk  into  skeleton 
lines  of  quiet  shade,  the  purple  clefts  of  the  hill-side  are  laby- 
rinthed  in  the  darkness,  the  orbed  spring  and  whirling  wave 
of  the  torrent  have  given  place  to  a  white,  ghastly,  interrupted 
gleaming.  Have  they  more  perfection  or  fulness  of  color? 
Not  so ;  for  their  effect  is  oftentimes  deeper  when  their  hues 
are  dim,  than  when  they  are  blazoned  with  crimson  and  pale 
gold ;  and  assuredly  in  the  blue  of  the  rainy  sky,  in  the  many 
tints  of  morning  flowers,  in  the  sunlight  on  summer  foliage  and 
field,  there  are  more  sources  of  mere  sensual  color-pleasure  than 
in  the  single  streak  of  wan  and  dying  light.  It  is  not  then  by 
nobler  form,  it  is  not  by  positiveness  of  hue,  it  is  not  by 
intensity  of  light  (for  the  sun  itself  at  noonday  is  effectless  upon 
the  feelings),  that  this  strange  distant  space  possesses  its 
attractive  power.  But  there  is  one  thing  that  it  has,  or 
suggests,  which  no  other  object  of  sight  suggests  in  equal 
degree,  and  that  is, — Infinity.  It  is  of  all  visible  things  the 
least  material,  the  least  finite,  the  farthest  withdrawn  from  the 
earth  prison-house,  the  most  typical  of  the  nature  of  God,  the 
most  suggestive  of  the  glory  of  his  dwelling-place.  For  the 
sky  of  night,  though  we  may  know  it  boundless,  is  dark,  it  is  a 
etudded  vault,  a  roof  that  seems  to  shut  us  in  and  down ;  but 
the  bright  distance  has  no  limit — we  feel  its  infinity,  as  we 
rejoice  in  its  purity  of  light. 

Let  the  reader  bear  constantly  in  mind,  that  I  insist  not 
on  his  accepting  any  interpretation  of  mine,  but  only  on  hia 
dwelling  so  long  on  those  objects,  which  he  perceives  to  be 
beautiful,  as  to  determine  whether  the  qualities  to  which  I 
trace  their  beauty  be  necessarily  there  or  no.  Farther  expres- 
sions of  infinity  there  are  in  the  mystery  of  Nature,  and  in 
eome  measure  in  her  vastncss,  but  these  are  dependent  on 
our  own  imperfections,  and  therefore,  though  they  produce 


ITNITT.  1 L 

sublimity  they  are  ,. .connected  with  beauty.  For  that  which 
we  foolishly  call  vastness  is,  rightly  considered,  not  more  won- 
derful,  not  more  impressive,  than  that  wliieh  we  insolently 
call  littleness ;  and  the  infinity  of  God  is  not  mysterious,  it  is 
only  unfathomable ;  not  concealed,  but  incomprehensible ;  it  is 
a  clear  infinity,  the  darkness  of  the  pure,  unsearchable  sea. 


H. UOTTY, 

"  All  things,"  says  Hooker,  "  (God  only  excepted)  besides 
ihe  nature  which  they  have  in  themselves,  receive  externally 
some  perfection  from  other  things."  The  Divine  essence  I 
think  it  better  to  speak  of  as  comprehensiveness,  than  as  unity, 
because  unity  is  often  understood  in  the  sense  of  oneness  or 
singleness,  instead  of  universality,  whereas  the  only  Unity 
which  by  any  means  can  become  grateful  or  nn  object  of  hope 
to  men,  :>nd  whose  types  therefore  hi  material  things  can  be 
beautiful,  is  that  on  which  turned  the  last  words  and  prayer  of 
Christ  before  his  crossing  of  the  Kidron  brook.  "  Neither 
pray  I  for  these  alone,  but  for  them  also  which  shall  believe  on 
me  through  their  word.  That  they  all  may  be  one,  as  thou, 
Father,  art  in  me,  and  I  in  thee." 

And  so  there  is  not  any  matter,  nor  any  spirit,  nor  any 
creature,  but  it  is  capable  of  a  unity  of  some  kind  with  other 
creatures,  and  in  that  unity  is  its  perfection  and  theirs,  and  a 
pleasure  also  for  the  beholding  of  all  other  creatures  that  can 
behold.  So  the  unity  of  spirits  is  partly  in  their  sympathy 
and  partly  in  their  giving  and  taking,  and  always  in  their  love, 
and  these  are  their  delight  and  their  strength,  for  tlieii 


12  BEAUTY. 

strength  is  in  their  co- working  and  army  fellowship,  ami  their 
delight  is  hi  the  giving  and  receiving  of  alternate  and  perpetuaJ 
currents  of  good,  their  inseparable  dependency  on  each  other's 
being,  and  their  essential  and  perfect  depending  on  their  Cre- 
ator's :  and  so  the  unity  of  earthly  creatures  is  their  power  and 
their  peace,  not  like  the  dead  and  cold  pence  of  undisturbed 
stones  and  solitary  mountains,  but  the  living  peace  of  trust, 
and  the  living  power  of  support,  of  hands  that  hold  each  other 
and  are  still :  and  so  the  unity  of  matter  is,  in  its  noblest  form, 
the  organization  of  it  which  builds  it  up  into  temples  for  the 
spirit,  and  in  its  lower  form,  the  sweet  and  strange  affinity, 
which  gives  to  it  the  glory  of  its  orderly  elements,  and  the  fair 
variety  of  change  and  assimilation  that  turns  the  dust  into  the 
crystal,  and  separates  the  waters  that  be  above  the  firmament 
from  the  waters  that  be  beneath  ;  and  in  its  lowest  form,  it  is 
the  working  and  walking  and  clinging  together  that  gives  their 
power  to  the  winds,  and  its  syllables  and  soundings  to  the  air, 
and  their  weight  to  the  waves,  and  their  burning  to  the  sun- 
beams, and  their  stability  to  the  mountains,  and  to  every  crea- 
ture whatsoever  operation  is  for  its  glory  and  for  others'  good. 
Among  all  things  which  are  to  have  unity  of  membership  one 
with  another,  there  must  be  difference  or  variety  ;  and  though 
it  is  possible  that  many  like  things  may  be  made  members  of 
cne  body,  yet  it  is  remarkable  that  this  structure  appears 
characteristic  of  the  lower  creatures,  rather  than  the  higher, 
as  the  many  legs  of  the  caterpillar,  and-  the  many  arms  and 
suckers- of  the  radiata,  and  that,  as  we  rise  in  order  of  being. 
the  number  of  similar  members  becomes  less,1  and  their  struc- 
ture commonly  seems  based  on  the  principle  of  the  unity  of 
two  things  by  a  third,  as  Plato  has  it  in  the  Timteus,  §  II. 

Hence,  out  of  the  necessity  of  unity,  arises  that  of  variety, 
A  necessity  often  more  vividly,  though  never  so  deeply  felt, 
because  lying  it  the  surfaces  of  things,  and  assisted  by  an 


REPOSE.  13 

influential  principle  of  our  nature,  the  love  of  change,  and  the 
power  of  contrast.  Receiving  variety,  only  as  that  which 
accomplishes  Unity,  or  makes  it  perceived,  its  operation  is 
found  to  be  very  precious. 

The  effect  of  variety  is  best  exemplified  by  the  melodies  of 
music,  wherein,  by  the  differences  of  the  notes,  they  are  con- 
nected with  each  other  in  certain  pleasant  relations.  Tliis 
connexion  taking  place  in  quantities  is  Proportion. 

This  influence  of  apparent  proportion — a  proportion,  be  it 
observed,  which  has  no  reference  to  ultimate  ends,  but  which 
is  itself,  seemingly,  the  end  and  object  of  operation  in  many 
of  the  forces  of  nature — is  therefore  at  the  root  of  all  our 
delight  in  any  beautiful  form  whatsoever. 

It  is  utterly  vain  to  endeavor  to  reduce  this  proportion  to 
finite  rules,  for  it  is  as  various  as  musical  melody,  and  the 
laws  to  which  it  is  subject  are  of  the  same  general  kind,  so 
that  the  determination  of  right  or  wrong  proportion  is  aa 
much  a  matter  of  feeling  and  experience  as  the  appreciation 
of  good  musical  composition;  not  but  that  there  is  a  science  of 
both,  and  principles  which  may  not  be  infringed,  but  that 
within  these  limits  the  liberty  of  invention  is  infinite,  and  the 
degrees  of  excellence,  infinite  also. 


m. — KEPOSE. 


There  is  probably  no  necessity  more  Imperatively  felt  by  the 
artist,  no  test  more  unfailing  of  the  greatness  of  artistical 
treatment,  than  that  of  the  appearance  of  repose,  and  yet  there 
i?  no  quality  whose  semblance  in  mere  matter  is  more  difficult 
to  define  or  illustrate.  Nevertheless,  I  believe  that  our  instinc- 


14  BEAUTY. 

live  love  of  it,  as  well  as  the  cause  to  which  I  attribute  that  love, 
(although  here  also,  as  in  the  former  cases,  I  contend  not  for 
the  interpretation,  but  for  the  fact,)  will  be  readily  :il!o\\ 
the  reader.  As  opposed  to  passion,  changefulncss,  or  laborious 
exertion,  repose  is  the  especial  and  separating  charucU-ristic 
of  the  eternal  mind  and  power;  it  is  the  "I  am"  of  the  Creator 
opposed  to  the  "I  become"  of  all  creatures;  it  is  the  sign  alike 
of  the  supreme  knowledge  which  is  incapable  of  surprise,  the 
supreme  power  which  is  incapable  of  labor,  the  supreme 
volition  which  is  incapable  of  change ;  it  is  the  stillness  of  the 
beams  of  the  eternal  chambers  laid  upon  the  variable  waters 
of  ministering  creatures;  and  as  we  saw  before  that  the  infinity 
which  was  a  type  of  the  Divine  nature  on  the  one  hand,  became 
yet  more  desirable  on  the  other  from  its  peculiar  address  to 
our  prison  hopes,  and  to  the  expectations  of  an  unsatisfied  and 
unaccomplished  existence,  so  the  types  of  this  third  attribute 
of  the  Deity  might  seem  to  have  been  rendered  farther  attrac- 
tive to  mortal  instinct,  through  the  infliction  upon  the  fallen 
creature  of  a  curse  necessitating  a  labor  once  unnatural  and 
still  most  painful,  so  that  the  desire  of  rest  planted  in  the  In-art 
is  no  sensual  nor  unworthy  one,  but  a  longing  for  renovation 
and  for  escape  from  a  state  whose  every  phase  is  mere 
preparation  for  another  equally  transitory,  to  one  in  which 
permanence  shall  have  become  possible  through  perfection. 
Hence  the  great  call  of  Christ  to  men,  that  call  on  which  St. 
Augustine  fixed  essential  expression  of  Christian  hope,  is 
accompanied  by  the  promise  of  rest;  and  the  death-bequest 
of  Christ  to  men  is  "peace." 

Hence,  I  think  there  is  no  desire  more  intense  or  711  ore 
exalted  than  that  which  exists  in  all  rightly  disciplined  minds, 
for  the  evidences  of  repose  in  external  signs.  I  say  fearlessly 
respecting  repose,  that  no  work  of  art  can  be  great  without 
in,  and  that  all  art  is  great  in  proportion  to  the  appearance 


REPOSE.  15 

of  it.  It  is  the  most  unfailing  test  of  beauty,  whether 
of  matter  or  of  motion ;  nothing  can  be  ignoble  1  hat  pos- 
sesses it,  nothing  right  that  has  it  not;  and  in  st.rict  pro- 
portion to  its  appearance  in  the  work,  is  the  majesty  of  mind 
to  be  inferred  in  the  artificer.  Without  I'egard  to  other  qua- 
lities, we  may  look  to  this  for  our  evidence,  and  by  the  search 
of  this  alone  we  may  be  led  to  the  rejection  of  all  that  is  base, 
and  the  accepting  of  all  that  is  good  and  great,  for  the  paths 
of  wisdom  are  all  peace. 

We  shall  see  by  this  light  three  colossal  images  standing  up 
side  by  side,  looming  in  their  great  rest  of  spirituality  above 
the  whole  world-horizon ;  Phidias,  Michael  Angelo,  and 
Dante ;  and  then,  separated  from  their  great  religious  thrones 
only  by  less  fulness  and  earnestness  of  faith,  Homer  and  Shak- 
speare :  and  from  these  we  may  go  down  step  by  step  among 
the  mighty  men  of  every  age,  securely  and  certainly  observant 
of  diminished  lustre  in  every  appearance  of  restlessness  and 
effort,  until  the  last  trace  of  true  inspiration  vanishes  in  the 
tottering  affectations,  or  the  tortured  inanities  of  modern 
times.  There  is  no  art,  no  pursuit,  whatsoever,  but  its  results 
may  be  classed  by  this  test  alone ;  everything  of  evil  is  be- 
trayed and  winnowed  away  by  it,  glitter  and  confusion  and 
glare  of  color,  inconsistency  or  absence  of  thought,  forced 
expression,  evil  choice  of  subject,  over  accumulation  of  ma- 
terials, whether  in  painting  or  literature ;  the  shallowness  of 
the  English  schools  of  ai't,  the  strained  and  disgusting  horrors 
of  the  French,  the  distorted  feverishness  of  the  German : — 
pretence,  over-decoration,  over-division  of  parts  in  architec- 
ture, and  again  in  music,  in  acting,  in  dancing,  in  whatsoever 
art,  great  or  mean,  there  are  yet  degrees  of  greatness  or  mean- 
ness entirely  dependent  on  this  single  quality  of  repose. 

But  that  which  in  lifeless  things  ennobles  them  by  seeming 
to  indicate  life,  ennobles  higher  creatures  by  indicating  the 


16  BEAUTY. 

exaltation  of  their  earthly  vitality  into  a  Divine  vitality ;  and 
raising  the  life  of  sense  into  the  life  of  faith — faith,  whether  we 
receive  it  in  the  sense  of  adherence  to  resolution,  obedience  to 
law,  regardfulness  of  promise,  in  which  from  all  time  it  has 
been  the  test  as  the  shield  of  the  true  being  and  life  of  man, 
or  in  the  still  higher  sense  of  trustfulness  in  the  presence., 
kindness,  and  word  of  God ;  in  which  form  it  has  been  exhi- 
bited under  the  Christian  dispensation.  For  whether  in  one 
or  other  form,  whether  the  faithfulness  of  men  whose  path  is 
chosen  and  portion  fixed,  in  the  following  and  receiving  of 
that  path  and  portion,  as  in  the  Thermopyhe  camp ;  or  the 
happier  faithfulness  of  children  in  the  good  giving  of  their 
Father,  and  of  subjects  in  the  conduct  of  their  king,  a.s  in  the 
"  Stand  still  and  see  the  salvation  of  God"  of  the  Red  Sea 
shore,  there  is  rest  and  peaccfulness,  the  "standing  still"  in 
both,  the  quietness  of  action  determined,  of  spirit  unalarmed, 
of  expectation  unimpatient :  beautiful,  even  when  based  only 
as  of  old,  on  the  self-command  and  self-possession,  the  per>is 
tent  dignity  or  the  uncalculating  love  of  the  creature,*  but 
more  beautiful  yet  when  the  rest  is  one  of  humility  instead  of 
pride,  and  the  trust  no  more  in  the  resolution  we  have  taken, 
but  in  the  hand  we  hold. 


*  "The  universal  instinct  of  repose, 

Tlie  longing  for  confirmed  tranquillity 
Inward  and  outward,  humble,  yet  sublime. 
The  life  where  hope  and  memory  are  as  one. 
Earth  quiet  and  unchanged ;  the  human  soul 
Consistent  in  self  rule;  and  heaven  revealed 
To  meditation,  in  that  quietness." 

WORHSWOUTH     Excursion,  B<x>k  ui 


SYMMKTKY.  17 


IV. SYHMETKY. 

Iii  all  perfectly  beautiful  objects,  there  is  found  the  opposi- 
tion of  one  part  to  another  and  a  reciprocal  balance  obtained ; 
in  animals  the  balance  being  commonly  between  opposite 
sides  (noto  the  disagreeableness  occasioned  by  the  exception 
in  flat  fish,  having  the  eyes  on  one  side  of  the  head),  but  in 
vegetables  the  opposition  is  less  distinct,  as  in  the  boughs  on 
opposite  sides  of  trees,  and  the  leaves  and  sprays  on  each  side 
of  the  boughs,  and  in  dead  matter  less  perfect  still,  often 
amounting  only  to  a  certain  tendency  towards  a  balance,  as  hi 
the  opposite  sides  of  valleys  and  alternate  windings  of  streams. 
In  tilings  in  which  perfect  symmetry  is  from  their  nature  im- 
possible or  improper,  a  balance  must  be  at  least  in  some  mea- 
fure  expressed  before  they  can  be  beheld  with  pleasure. 
Hence  the  necessity  of  what  artists  require  as  opposing  lines 
or  masses  hi  composition,  the  propriety  of  which,  as  well  aa 
their  value,  depends  chiefly  on  their  inartificial  and  natural 
invention.  Absolute  equality  is  not  required,  still  less  abso- 
lute similarity.  A  mass  of  subdued  color  may  be  balanced  by 
a  point  of  a  powerful  one,  and  a  long  and  latent  line  overpow- 
ered by  a  short  and  conspicuous  one.  The  only  error  against 
which  it  is  necessary  to  guard  the  reader  with  respect  to  sym- 
metry, is  the  confounding  it  with  proportion,  though  it  seema 
strange  that  the  two  terms  could  ever  have  been  used  as 
synonymous.  Symmetry  is  the  opposition  of  equal  quantities 
to  each  other.  Proportion  the  connection  of  unequal  quanti- 
ties Avith  each  other.  The  property  of  a  tree  in  sending  out 
equal  bouglis  on  opposite  sides  is  symmetrical.  Its  sending 
out  shorter  and  smaller  towards  the  top,  proportional.  ID 
the  human  face  its  balance  of  opposite  sides  is  symmetry,  its 
division  upward?,  proportion. 


18  BEAUTY. 

"Whethei  the  agreeableness  of  symmetry  be  in  any  way 
referable  tc  its  expression  of  the  Aristotelian  «VoVi]£,  that  is  to 
say  of  abstract  justice,  I  leave  the  reader  to  determine ;  I  only 
assort  respecting  it,  that  it  is  necessary  to  the  dignity  of  every 
form,  and  that  by  the  removal  of  it  we  shall  render  the  other 
elements  of  beauty  comparatively  ineffectual :  though,  on  the 
other  hand,  it  is  to  be  observed  that  it  is  rather  a  mode  of 
arrangement  of  qualities  than  a  quality  itself;  and  hence  sym- 
metry has  little  power  over  the  mind,  unless  all  the  other  con- 
stituents of  beauty  be  found  together  with  it 


v. — PUKITY. 

There  is  one  quality  which  might  have  escaped  us  in  the 
consideration  of  mere  matter,  namely  purity,  and  yet  I  think 
that  the  original  notion  of  this  quality  is  altogether  material, 
and  has  only  been  attributed  to  color  when  such  color  is  sug- 
gestive of  the  condition  of  matter  from  which  we  originally 
received  the  idea.  For  I  see  not  in  the  abstract  how  one 
color  should  be  considered  purer  than  another,  except  as  more 
or  less  compounded,  whereas  there  is  certainly  a  sense  of 
purity  or  impurity  in  the  most  compound  and  neutral  colors, 
as  well  as  in  the  simplest,  a  quality  difficult  to  define,  and 
which  the  reader  will  probably  be  surprised  by  my  calling  the 
type  of  energy,  with  which  it  has  certainly  little  traceable 
connexion  in  the  mind. 

The  only  idea  which  I  think  can  be  legitimately  connected 
with  purity  of  matter,  is  this  of  vital  and  energetic  connex- 
ion among  its-  particles,  and  the  idea  of  foulness'  is  essen- 
tially connected  with  dissolution  and  death.  Thus  the  purity 


PUBITY.  19 

of  the  rock,  contrasted  with  the  foulness  of  dust  or  mould,  ia 
expressed  by  the  epithet  "  living,"  very  singularly  given  in 
the  rock,  in  almost  all  languages ;  singularly  I  say,  because 
lite  is  almost  the  last  attribute  one  would  ascribe  to  stone,  but 
for  this  visible  energy  and  connexion  of  its  particles;  and  so 
of  water  as  opposed  to  stagnancy.  And  I  do  not  think  that, 
however  pure  a  powder  or  dust  may  be,  the  idea  of  beauty  is 
ever  connected  with  it,  for  it  is  not  the  mere  purity,  but  the 
active  condition  of  the  substance  which  is  desired,  so  that  as 
soon  as  it  shoots  into  crystals,  or  gathers  into  effervescence,  a 
sensation  of  active  or  real  purity  is  received  which  was  noi 
felt  in  the  calcined  caput  mortuum. 

The  most  lovely  objects  in  nature  are  only  partially  trans- 
parent. I  suppose  the  utmost  possible  sense  of  beauty  (of 
color)  is  conveyed  by  a  feebly  translucent,  smooth,  but  not 
lustrous  surface  of  white,  and  pale  warm  red,  subdued  by  the 
most  pure  and  delicate  greys,  as  in  the  finer  portions  of  the 
human  frame  ;  in  wreaths  of  snow,  and  in  white  plumage 
under  rose  light.  A  fair  forehead  outshines  its  diamond  dia- 
dem. The  sparkle  of  the  cascade  withdraws  not  our  eyes 
from  the  snowy  summits  in  their  evening  silence. 

With  the  idea  of  purity  comes  that  of  spirituality,  for  the 
essential  characteristic  of  matter  is  its  inertia,  whence,  by 
adding  to  it  purity  or  energy,  we  may  in  some  measure  spi- 
ritualize even  matter  itself.  Thus  in  the  descriptions  of  the 
Apocalypse  it  is  its  purity  that  fits  it  for  its  place  in  heaven  ; 
the  river  of  the  water  of  life  that  proceeds  out  of  the  throne 
of  the  Lamb  is  clear  as  crystal,  and  the  pavement  of  the  city 
is  pure  gold,  like  unto  clear  glass 


20  BEAUTY. 


VL MODEBAT1ON. 

Of  objects  which,  in  respect  of  the  qualities  hitherto  con- 
sidered, appear  to  have  equal  claims  to  regard,  \ve  find,  never 
theless,  that  certain  are  preferred  to  others  in  consequence  of 
an  attractive  power,  usually  expressed  by  the  terras  "  chaste- 
ness,  refinement,  or  elegance,"  and  it  appears  also  that  things 
which  in  other  respects  have  little  in  them  of  natural  beauty, 
and  are  of  forms  altogether  simple  and  adapted  to  simple 
uses,  are  capable  of  much  distinction  and  desirableness  in  con- 
sequence of  these  qualities  only.  It  is  of  importance  to  dis- 
cover the  real  nature  of  the  ideas  thus  expressed. 

Something  of  the  peculiar  meaning  of  the  words  is  referable 
to  the  authority  of  fashion  and  the  exclusiveness  of  pride, 
owing  to  which  that  which  is  the  mode  of  a  particular  time  is 
submissively  esteemed,  and  that  which  by  its  costliness  or  its 
rarity  is  of  difficult  attainment,  or  in  any  way  appears  to  have 
been  chosen  as  the  best  of  many  things  (which  is  the  original 
sense  of  the  words  elegant  and  exquisite),  is  esteemed  for  the 
witness  it  bears  to  the  dignity  of  the  chooser. 

But  neither  of  these  ideas  are  in  any  way  connected  with 
eternal  beauty,  neither  do  they  at  all  account  for  that  agree- 
ableness  of  color  and  form  which  is  especially  termed  chaste- 
ness,  and  which  it  would  seem  to  be  a  characteristic  of  rightly 
trained  mind  in  all  things  to  prefer,  and  of  common  minds  to 
reject. 

There  is,  however,  another  character  of  artificial  produc- 
tions, to  which  these  terms  have  partial  rci'creiu-e,  which  it  is 
of  some  importance  to  note,  that  of  finish,  exactness  or 
refinement,  which  are  commonly  desired  in  the  works  of  men, 
owing  both  to  their  difficulty  of  accomplishment  and  conse- 
quent expression  of  care  and  power.  And  there  is  not  a 


MODERATION.  21 

greater  sign  of  the  imperfection  of  general  taste,  ihau  its 
capability  of  contentment  with  forms  and  tilings  which,  pro- 
tossing  completion,  are  yet  not  exact  nor  complete,  as  in  the 
vulgar  with  wax  and  clay,  and  china  figures,  and  in  oad 
sculptors  with  an  unfinished  and  clay-like  modelling  of  sur- 
face, and  curves  and  angles  of  no  precision  or  delicacy.  Yet 
this  finish  is  not  a  part  or  constituent  of  beauty,  but  the 
full  and  ultimate  rendering  of  it.  And  therefore,  as  there 
certainly  is  admitted  a  difference  of  degree  in  what  we  call 
chasteness,  even  in  Divine  work  (compare  the  hollyhock  or 
the  sunflower  with  the  vale  lily),  we  must  seek  for  it  some 
other  explanation  and  source  than  this. 

And  if,  bringing  down  our  ideas  of  it  from  complicated 
objects  to  simple  lines  and  colors,  we  analyze  and  legard 
them  carefully,  I  think  we  shall  be  able  to  trace  them  to  an 
under-current  of  constantly  agreeable  feeling,  excited  by  the 
appearance  in  material  things  of  a  self-restrained  liberty,  that 
is  to  say,  by  the  image  of  that  acting  of  God  with  regard  to 
all  his  creation,  wherein,  though  free  to  operate  in  whatever 
arbitrary,  sudden,  violent,  or  inconstant  ways  he  will,  he  yet, 
if  we  may  reverently  so  speak,  restrains  hi  himself  this  his 
Omnipotent  liberty,  and  works  always  in  consistent  modes, 
called  by  us  laws.  And  this  restraint  or  moderation,  accord- 
ing to  the  words  of  Hooker  ("  that  which  doth  moderate  the 
force  and  power,  that  which  doth  appoint  the  form  and  mea- 
sure of  working,  the  same  we  term  a  law"),  is  in  the  Deity 
not  restraint,  such  as  it  is  said  of  creatures,  but,  as  again  says 
Hooker,  "  the  very  being  of  God  is  a  law  to  his  working,"  so 
that  every  appearance  of  painfulness  or  want  of  power  ami 
freedom  in  material  things  is  wrong  and  ugly ;  for  the  light 
restraint,  the  image  of  Divine  operation,  is  both  in  them,  and 
in  men,  a  willing  and  not  painful  stopping  short  of  the  utmost 
degree  to  which,  their  power  might  reacli,  and  the  appearance 


22  BEAl'TY. 

of  fettering  or  confinement  is  the  cause  of  ugliness  in  the  one, 
as  the  slightest  painfulness  or  effort  in  restraint  is  a  sign  of  sir, 
in  the  other. 

I  have  put  this  attribute  of  beauty  last,  because  I  consider 
it  the  girdle  and  safeguard  of  all  the  rest,  and  in  this  respect 
the  most  essential  of  all,  for  it  is  possible  that  a  certain  degree 
of  beauty  may  be  attained  even  hi  the  absence  of  one  of  its 
other  constituents,  as  sometimes  in  some  measure  without 
symmetry  or  without  unity.  But  the  least  appearance  of 
violence  or  extravagance,  of  the  want  of  moderation  and 
restraint,  is,  I  think,  destructive  of  all  beauty  whatsoever  in 
everything,  color,  form,  motion,  language,  or  thought,  giving 
rise  to  that  which  in  color  we  call  glaring,  in  form  inelegant, 
in  motion  ungraceful,  in  language  coarse,  in  thought  undis- 
ciplined, in  all  unchastened ;  which  qualities  are  in  everything 
most  painful,  because  the  signs  of  disobedient  and  irregular 
operation. 

In  color  it  is  not  red,  but  rose-color,  which  is  most  beauti 
ful,  neither  such  actual  green  as  we  find  in  summer  foliage, 
partly,  and  in  our  painting  of  it  constantly;  but  such  grey 
green  as  that  into  which  nature  modifies  her  distant  tints,  or 
such  pale  green  and  uncertain  as  we  see  in  sunset  sky,  and 
in  the  clefts  of  the  glacier,  and  the  chrysoprase,  and  the  sea- 
foam.  And  so  of  all  colors ;  not  that  they  may  not  sometimes 
be  deep  and  full,  but  that  there  is  a  solemn  moderation  even 
hi  their  very  fulness,  and  a  holy  reference  beyond  and  out  of 
their  own  nature  to  great  harmonies  by  which  they  are  go 
verned,  and  in  obedience  to  which  is  their  glory.  The  very 
brilliancy  and  real  power  of  all  color  is  dependent  on  the  chas- 
tening of  it,  as  of  a  voice  on  its  gentleness,  and  as  of  action  on 
its  calmness,  and  as  all  moral  vigor  on  self-command.  And 
therefore  as  that  virtue  which  men  last,  and  with  most  diffi- 
culty attain  unto,  and  which  many  attain  not  at  all,  and  yet; 


MODERATION.  23 

that  which  is  essential  to  the  conduct  and  almost  to  the  being 
of  all  other  virtues,  since  neither  imagination,  nor  invention, 
nor  industry,  nor  sensibility,  nor  energy,  nor  any  other  good 
having,  is  of  full  avail  without  this  of  self-command,  whereby 
works  truly  masculine  and  mighty,  are  produced,  and  by  the 
eigns  of  which  they  are  separated  from  that  lower  host  of 
things  brilliant,  magnificent,  and  redundant,  and  farther  yet 
from  that  of  the  loose,  the  lawle>s,  the  exaggerated,  the  inso- 
lent, and  the  profane,  I  would  have  the  necessity  of  it  fore- 
most among  all  our  inculcating;  and  the  name  of  it  largest 
among  all  our  inscribing,  in  so  far  that,  over  the  doors  of 
every  school  of  Art,  I  would  have  this  one  word,  relieved  out 
in  deep  letters  of  pure  gold, — MODERATION. 

I  proceed  more  particularly  to  examine  the  nature  of  that 
second  kind  of  beauty  of  which  I  spoke  as  consisting  in  "  the 
appearance  of  felicitous  fulfilment  of  function  hi  living  things." 
I  have  already  noticed  the  example  of  very  pure  and  high 
typical  beauty  which  is  to  be  found  in  the  lines  and  gradations 
of  unsullied  snow :  If,  passing  to  the  edge  of  a  sheet  of  it, 
upon  the  lower  Alps,  early  in  May,  we  find,  as  we  are  nearly 
sure  to  find,  two  or  three  little  round  openings  pierced  in  it,  and 
through  these  emergent,  a  slender,  pensive,  fragile  flower* 
whose  small,  dark,  purple-fringed  bell  hangs  down  and  shudders 
over  the  icy  cleft  that  it  has  cloven,  as  if  partly  wondering  at  its 
own  recent  grave,  and  partly  dying  of  very  fatigue  after  ita 
hard  won  victory;  we  shall  be,  or  we  ought  to  be,  moved  by 
a  totally  different  impression  of  loveliness  from  that  which  we 
receive  among  the  dead  ice  and  the  idle  clouds.  There  is  now 
uttered  to  us  a  call  for  sympathy,  now  offered  to  us  an  image 
of  moral  purpose  and  achievement,  which,  however  unconscious 
or  senseless  the  creature  may  indeed  be  that  so  seems  to  call, 
cannot  be  heard  without  affection,  nor  contemplated  without 
*  Soldanclla  Alpiua. 


24  BEAUTY. 

worship,  by  any  of  us  whose  heart  is  rightly  tuned,  or  i\hos€ 
mind  is  clearly  and  surely  sighted. 

Throughout  the  whole  of  the  organic  creation  every  being 
in  a  perfect  state  exhibits  certain  appearances,  or  evidences,  of 
happiness,  and  besides  is  in  its  nature,  its  desires,  its  modes 
of  nourishment,  habitation,  and  death,  illustrative  or  expressive 
of  certain  moral  dispositions  or  principles.  Now,  first,  in  the 
keenness  of  the  sympathy  which  we  feel  in  the  happiness,  real 
or  apparent,  of  all  organic  beings,  and  which,  as  we  shall 
presently  see,  in  variably  prompts  us,  from  the  joy  we  have  in 
it,  to  look  upon  those  as  most  lovely  which  are  most  happy ; 
and  secondly,  in  the  justness  of  the  moral  sense  which  rightly 
reads  the  lesson  they  are  all  intended  to  teach,  and  classes  them 
in  orders  of  worthiness  and  beauty  according  to  the  rank  and 
nature  of  that  lesson,  whether  it  be  of  warning  or  example. 

Its  first  perfection,  therefore,  relating  to  vital  beauty,  is  the 
kindness  and  unselfish  fulness  of  heart,  which  receives  the 
utmost  amount  of  pleasure  from  the  happiness  of  all  things. 
Of  which  hi  high  degree  the  heart  of  man  is  incapable,  neither 
what  intense  enjoyment  the  angels  may  have  in  all  that  they 
see  of  things  that  move  and  live,  and  in  the  part  they  take  in 
the  shedding  of  God's  kindness  upon  them,  can  we  know  or 
conceive :  only  in  proportion  as  we  draw  near  to  God,  and  are 
made  in  measure  like  unto  him,  can  we  increase  this  our  posses- 
sion of  charity,  of  which  the  entire  essence  is  in  God  only. 

Wherefore  it  is  evident  that  even  the  ordinary  exercise  of 
this  faculty  implies  a  condition  of  the  whole  moral  being  in 
some  measure  right  and  healthy,  and  that  to  the  entire  exeivise 
of  it  there  is  necessary  the  entire  perfection  of  the  Christian 
c-liaracter,  for  he  who  loves  not  God,  nor  his  brother,  cannot 
love  the  grass  beneath  his  feet  and  the  creatures  that  fill  those 
spaces  in  the  universe  which  he  needs  not,  and  vhk-h  live  not 
for  his  uses ;  nay,  he  has  seldom  grace  to  be  grateful  even  to 


BEAUTY    IN    ANIMALS.  25 

those  that  love  him  and  serve  him,  while,  on  the  other  hand, 
none  can  love  God  nor  his  human  brother  without  loving  all 
things  which  his  Father  loves,  nor  without  looking  upon  them 
every  one  as  in  that  respect  his  brethren  also,  and  perhaps 
worthier  than  he,  if  in  the  under  concords  they  have  to  fill, 
tlieir  part  is  touched  more  truly. 

For  it  is  matter  of  easy  demonstration,  that  setting  the 
characters  of  typical  beauty  aside,  the  pleasure  afforded  by 
eve^y  organic  form  is  in  proportion  to  its  appearance  of  healthy 
vital  energy ;  as  in  a  rose  bush,  setting  aside  all  the  consider- 
ations of  gradated  flushing  of  color  and  fair  folding  of  line, 
which  it  shares  with  the  cloud  or  the  snow-wreath,  we  find  in 
and  through  all  tliis  certain  signs  pleasant  and  acceptable  as 
signs  of  life  and  enjoyment  in  the  particular  individual  plant 
itself.  Every  leaf  and  stalk  is  seen  to  have  a  function,  to  be 
corstantly  exercising  that  function,  and  as  it  seems  solely  for 
the  good  and  enjoyment  of  the  plant. 


BEAUTY    IN   ANIMALS. 

Of  eyes  we  shall  find  those  ugliest  which  have  in  them 
no  expression  nor  life  whatever,  but  a  corpse-like  stare,  or 
an  indefinite  meaningless  glaring,  as  in  some  lights,  those  ot 
owls  and  cats,  and  mostly  of  insects  and  of  all  creatures  in 
which  the  eye  seems  rather  an  external,  optical  instrument 
than  a  bodily  member  through  which  emotion  and  virtue  of 
soul  may  be  expressed  (as  pre-eminently  in  the  chameleon), 
because  the  seeming  want  of  sensibility  and  vitality  in  a  liv- 
ing creature  is  the  most  painful  of  all  wants.  And  next  to 


26  BEAUTY. 

these  in  ugliness  come  the  eyes  that  gam  vitality  indeed  bnt 
only  by  means  of  the  expression  of  intense  malignity,  as  in 
the  serpent  and  alligator ;  and  next  to  these,  to  whose  malig- 
nity is  added  the  virtue  of  subtlety  and  keenness,  as  of  the 
lynx  and  hawk;  and  then,  by  diminishing  the  malignity  and 
increasing  the  expressions  of  comprehensiveness  and  determi- 
nation, we  arrive  at  those  of  the  lion  and  eagle,  and  at  last, 
by  destroying  malignity  altogether,  at  the  fair  eye  of  the 
herbivorous  tribes,  wherein  the  superiority  of  beauty  consists 
always  in  the  greater  or  less  "sweetness  and  gentleness  prima- 
rily, as  in  the  gazelle,  camel,  and  ox,  and  in  the  greater  or 
less  intellect,  secondaiHy,  as  in  the  horse  and  dog,  and  finally, 
in  gentleness  and  intellect  both  in  man.  And  again,  taking 
the  mouth,  another  source  of  expression,  we  find  it  ugliest 
where  it  has  none,  as  mostly  in  fish,  or  perhaps  where,  with- 
out gaming  much  in  expression  of  any  kind,  it  becomes  a  for- 
midable destructive  instrument,  as  again  in  the  alligator,  and 
then,  by  some  increase  of  expression,  we  arrive  at  birds'  , 
beaks,  wherein  there  is  more  obtained  by  the  difr'eivnt  ways 
of  setting  on  the  mandibles  than  is  commonly  supposed  (com- 
pare the  bills  of  the  duck  and  the  eagle),  and  thence  we  reach 
the  finely-developed  lips  of  the  carnivora,  which  nevertheless 
lose  that  beauty  they  have,  in  the  actions  of  snarling  and 
biting,  and  from  these  we  pass  to  the  nobler  because  gentler 
and  more  sensible,  of  the  horse,  camel,  and  fawn,  and  so 
again  up  to  man,  only  there  is  less  traceableness  of  the  prin- 
ciple in  the  mouths  of  the  lower  animals,  because  they  are  in 
slight  measure  only  capable  of  expression,  and  chiefly  used  as 
instruments,  and  that  of  low  function,  whereas  in  man  the 
mouth  is  given  most  definitely  as  a  means  of  expression, 
beyond  and  above  its  lower  functions. 

We  are  to  take  it  for  granted,  that  every  creature  of  God 
is  in  some  way  good,  and  has  a  duty  and  specific  operation 


HUMAN   BEAUTY.  27 

providentially  accessory  to  the  well-being  of  all ;  we  aie  to 
look  in  this  faith  to  that  employment  and  nature  of  each,  and 
to  derive  pleasure  from  their  entire  perfection  and  fitness  for 
the  duty  they  have  to  do,  and  in  their  entire  fulfilment  of  it ; 
and  so  we  are  to  take  pleasure  and  find  beauty  in  the  magni 
ficent  binding  together  of  the  jaws  of  the  ichthyosaurus  for 
catching  and  holding,  and  in  the  adaptation  of  the  lion  foi 
springing,  and  of  the  locust  for  destroying,  and  of  the  lark 
for  singing,  and  in  every  creature  for  the  doing  of  that  which 
God  has  made  it  to  do. 


HUMAN   BEAUTY. 

We  come  at  last  to  set  ourselves  face  to  face  with  our- 
selves, expecting  that  in  creatures  made  after  the  image  of 
God  we  are  to  find  comeliness  and  completion  more  exquisite 
than  in  the  fowls  of  the  air  and  the  things  that  pass  through 
the  paths  of  the  sea. 

But  behold  now  a  sudden  change  from  all  former  experi- 
ence. No  longer  among  the  individuals  of  the  race  is  there 
equality  or  likeness,  a  distributed  fairness  and  fixed  type  visi- 
ble in  each,  but  evil  diversity,  and  terrible  stamp  of  various 
degradation  ;  features  seamed  with  sickness,  dimmed  by  sen- 
suality, convulsed  by  passion,  pinched  by  poverty,  shadowed 
by  sorrow,  branded  with  remorse ;  bodies  consumed  with 
sloth,  broken  down  by  labor,  tortured  by  disease,  dishonored 
in  foul  uses ;  intellects  without  power,  hearts  without  he  pc, 
minds  earthly  and  devilish  ;  our  bones  full  of  the  sin  of  our 
youth,  tho  heaven  revealing  our  iniquity,  the  earth  rising 


28  BEAUTY 

up  against  us,  the  routs  dried  up  "beneath,  and  the  branch,  ml 
oft  above ;  well  for  us  only,  if,  after  beholding  this  our  natu- 
ral face  in  a  glass,  we  desire  not  straightway  to  forget  what 
manner  of  men  we  be. 

Herein  there  is  at  last  something,  and  too  much,  for  that 
short,  stopping  intelligence  and  dull  perception  of  ours  to 
accomplish,  whether  in  earnest  fact,  or  in  the  seeking  for  the 
outward  image  of  beauty : — to  undo  the  devil's  work,  to  re- 
store to  the  body  the  grace  and  the  power  which  inherited 
disease  has  destroyed,  to  return  to  the  spirit  the  purity,  and 
to  the  intellect  the  grasp  that  they  had  in  Paradise.  Now, 
first  of  all,  this  work,  be  it  observed,  is  in  no  respect  a  work 
of  imagination.  "Wrecked  we  are,  and  nearly  all  to  pieces ; 
but  that  little  good  by  which  we  are  to  redeem  ourselves  is 
to  be  got  out  of  the  old  wreck,  beaten  about  and  full  of  sand 
though  it  be ;  and  not  out  of  that  desert  island  of  pride  ou 
which  the  devils  split  first,  and  we  after  them :  and  so  the 
only  restoration  of  the  body  that  AVC  can  reach  is  not  to  be 
coined  out  of  our  fancies,  but  to  be  collected  out  of  such 
uninjured  and  bright  vestiges  of  the  old  seal  as  we  can  find 
and  set  together;  and  so  the  ideal  of  the  features,  as  the  good 
and  perfect  soul  is  seen  in  them,  is  not  to  be  reached  by  ima- 
gination, but  by  the  seeing  and  reaching  forth  of  the  better 
part  of  the  soul  to  that  of  which  it  must  first  know  the  sweet- 
ness and  goodness  in  itself,  before  it  can  much  desire,  01 
rightly  find,  the  signs  of  it  in  others. 

The  operation  of  the  mind  npon  the  body,  and  evidence  of 
it  thereon,  may  be  considered  under  three  heads : — 

First,  the  intellectual  powers  upon  the  features,  in  the  fine 
cutting  and  chiselling  of  them,  and  removal  from  them  of  signs 
of  sensuality  and  sloth,  by  which  they  are  blunted  and  dead- 
ened, and  substitution  of  energy  and  intensity  for  vacancy 
and  insipidity  (by  which  wants  alone  the  faces  of  many  fab 


HUMAN    BEAUTY.  29 

women  are  utterly  spoiled,  and  rendered  valueless),  and  by  the 
keenness  given  to  the  eye,  and  fine  moulding  and  development 
to  the  brow. 

The  second  point  to  be  considered  in  the  influence  of  mind 
upon  body,  is  the  mode  of  operation  and  conjunction  of  the 
moral  feelings  on  and  with  the  intellectual  powers,  and  then 
their  conjoint  influence  on  the  bodily  form.  Now,  the  opera- 
tion of  the  right  moral  feelings  on  the  intellectual  is  always 
for  the  good  of  the  latter,  for  it  is  not  possible  that  selfish- 
ness should  reason  rightly  in  any  respect,  but  must  be  blind  in 
its  estimation  of  the  worthiness  of  all  things,  neither  angers 
for  that  overpowers  the  reason  or  outcries  it,  neither  sensu- 
ality, for  that  overgrows  and  chokes  it,  neither  agitation,  for 
that  has  no  time  to  compare  things  together,  neither  enmity, 
for  that  must  be  unjust,  neither  fear,  for  that  exaggerates  all 
things,  neither  cunning  and  deceit,  for  that  which  is  volun- 
tarily untrue  will  soon  be  unwittingly  so  :  but  the  great  rea- 
soners  are  self-command,  and  trust  unagitated,  and  deep-look- 
ing Love,  and  Faith,  which,  as  she  is  above  Reason,  so  she 
best  holds  the  reins  of  it  from  her  high  seat :  so  that  they  err 
grossly  who  think  of  the  right  development  even  of  the  intel- 
lectual type  as  possible,  unless  we  look  to  higher  sources  of 
beauty  first.  For  there  is  not  any  virtue  the  exercise  of 
which,  even  momentarily,  will  not  impress  a  new  fairness  upon 
the  features;  neither  on  them  only,  but  on  the  whole  body, 
both  the  intelligence  and  the  moral  faculties  have  operation, 
for  even  all  the  movement  and  gestures,  however  slight,  are 
diilerent  in  their  modes  according  to  the  mind  that  governs 
them,  and  on  the  gentleness  and  decision  of  just  feeling  there 
follows  a  grace  of  action,  and  through  continuance  of  this 
a  grace  of  form,  which  by  no  discipline  may  be  taught  01 
attained. 

The  third  point  to  be  considered  with  respect  to  the  cor 


30  BEAUTY. 

poreal  expression  of  mental  character  is,  that  there  is  a  cer 
tain  period  of  the  soul  culture  when  it  begins  to  interfere 
with  some  of  the  characters  of  typical  beauty  belonging  to  the 
bodily  frame,  the  stirring  of  the  intellect  wearing  do^fn  the 
flesh,  and  the  moral  enthusiasm  burning  its  way  out  to  hea- 
ven, through  the  emaciation  of  the  earthen  vessel ;  and  that 
there  is,  in  this  indication  of  subduing  of  the  mortal  by  the 
immortal  part,  an  ideal  glory  of  perhaps  a  purer  and  higher 
range  than  that  of  the  more  perfect  material  form.  "We  con- 
ceive, I  think,  more  nobly  of  the  weak  presence  of  Paul  than 
of  the  fair  and  ruddy  countenance  of  Daniel. 

The  love  of  the  human  race  is  increased  by  their  individual 
differences,  and  the  unity  of  the  creature  made  perfect  by 
each  having  something  to  bestow  and  to  receive,  bound  to  the 
rest  by  a  thousand  various  necessities  and  various  gratitudes, 
humility  in  each  rejoicing  to  admire  hi  his  fellow  that  which 
ne  finds  not  in  himself,  and  each  being  in  some  respect  the 
complement  of  his  race. 

In  investigating  the  signs  of  the  ideal,  or  perfect  type  of 
humanity,  we  must  distinguish  between  differences  conceiv- 
ably existing  in  a  perfect  state,  and  differences  resulting  from 
immediate  and  present  operation  of  the  Adamite  curse. 

As  it  is  impossible  that  any  essence  short  of  the  Divine, 
should  at  the  same  instant  be  equally  receptive  of  all  emotions, 
those  emotions  which,  by  right  and  order,  have  the  most 
usual  victory,  both  leave  the  stamp  of  their  habitual  presence 
on  the  body,  and  render  the  individual  more  and  more  suscej>- 
lible  of  them  in  proportion  to  the  frequency  of  their  pre- 
valent recurrence  ;  added  to  which,  causes  of  distinctive  cha- 
racter are  to  be  taken  into  account,  the  differences  of  age  and 
sex,  which,  though  seemingly  of  more  finite  influence,  cannot 
be  banished  from  any  human  conception.  David,  ruddy  and 
of  a  fair  countenance,  with  the  brook  stone  of  deliverance  in 


HUMAN    BEAUTY.  31 

his  hand,  is  not  more  ideal  than  David  leaning  on  the  old  age 
of  Barzillai,  returning  chastened  to  his  kingly  home.  And 
they  who  are  as  the  angels  of  God  in  heaven,  yet  cannot  be 
conceived  as  so  assimilated,  that  their  different  experiences 
and  affections  upon  earth  shall  then  be  forgotten  and  effect- 
less :  the  child  taken  early  to  his  place  cannot  be  imagined  to 
wear  there  such  a  body,  nor  to  have  such  thoughts,  as  the 
glorified  apostle  who  has  finished  his  course  and  kept  the 
faith  on  earth.  And  so  whatever  perfections  and  likeness  of 
love  we  may  attribute  to  either  the  tried  or  the  crowned 
creatures,  there  is  the  difference  of  the  stars  in  glory  among 
them  yet ;  differences  of  original  gifts,  though  not  of  occupy- 
ing till  their  Lord  come,  different  dispensations  of  trial  and  of 
trust,  of  sorrow  and  support,  both  in  their  own  inward,  vari- 
able hearts,  and  in  their  positions  of  exposure  or  of  peace,  of 
the  gourd  shadow  and  the  smiting  sun,  of  calling  at  heat  of 
day  or 'eleventh  hour,  of  the  house  unroofed  by  faith,  and  the 
clouds  opened  by  revelation  ;  differences  in  warning,  in  mer- 
cies, in  sicknesses,  in  signs,  in  time  of  calling  to  account ;  like 
only  they  all  are  by  that  which  is  not  of  them,  but  the  gift  of 
God's  unchangeable  mercy.  "  I  will  give  unto  this  last  even 
as  unto  thee." 

Those  signs  of  evil  which  are  commonly  most  manifest  on 
the  human  features  are  roughly  divisible  into  these  four  kinds : 
the  signs  of  pride,  of  sensuality,  of  fear,  and  of  cruelty.  Any 
one  of  which  will  destroy  the  ideal  character  of  the  counte- 
nance and  body. 

Now  of  these,  the  first,  pride,  is  perhaps  the  most  destruc- 
tive of  all  the  four  seeing  it  is  the  undermost  and  original 
story  of  all  sin. 

The  second  destroyer  of  human  beauty,  is  the  appearance 
ol  sensual  character,  more  difficult  to  trace,  owing  to  its 
peculiar  subtlety. 


32  EEAUTY. 

'  Of  all  God's  works,  which  doe  this  worMe  adorn, 
There  is  m  one  more  faire,  and  excellent 
Than  is  man's  body  both  for  power  tud  forme 
Whiles  it  is  kept  in  sober  government 
But  none  than  it  more  foul  and  iudectnt 
Distempered  through  misrule  and  passions  bace.' 

Respecting  those  two  other  vices  of  the  human  face,  the 
expressions  of  fear  and  ferocity,  these  only  occasionally  enter 
into  the  conception  of  character. 

Among  the  children  of  God,  while  there  is  always  that  fearful 
and  bowed  apprehension  of  his  majesty,  and  that  sacred  dread 
of  all  offence  to  him,  which  is  called  the  fear  of  God,  yet  of 
real  and  essential  fear  there  is  not  any,  but  clinging  of  confi- 
dence to  him,  as  their  Rock,  Fortress,  and  Deliverer,  and  perfect 
love,  and  casting  out  of  fear,  so  that  it  is  not  possible  that  while 
the  mind  is  rightly  bent  on  him,  there  should  be  dread  of 
anything  either  earthly  or  supernatural,  and  the  more  dreadful 
seems  the  height  of  his  majesty,  the  less  fear  they  feel  that 
dwell  in  the  shadow  of  it  ("  Of  whom  shall  I  be  afraid  ?")  so 
that  they  are  as  David  was,  devoted  to  his  fear ;  whereas,  on 
the  other  hand,  those  who,  if  they  may  help  it,  never  conceive 
of  God,  but  thrust  away  all  thought  and  memory  of  him,  and 
in  his  real  terribleness  and  omnipresence  fear  him  not  nor  know 
him,  yet  are  of  real  acute,  piercing,  and  ignoble  fear,  haunted 
for  evermore ;  fear  inconceiving  and  desperate  that  calls  to  the 
rocks,  and  hides  in  the  dust ;  and  hence  the  peculiar  baseness 
of  the  expression  of  terror,  a  baseness  attributed  to  it  in  all 
limes,  and  among  all  nations,  as  of  a"  passion  atheistical,  brutal, 
and  profane.  So  also,  it  is  always  joined  with  ferocity,  which 
is  of  all  passions  the  least  human;  for  of  sensual  desires  there  is 
license  to  men,  as  necessity;  and  of  vanity  there  is  intellectual 
cause,  so  that  when  seen  in  a  brute  it  is  pleasant,  and  a  siu-n  of 
good  wit ;  and  of  lear  there  is  at  times  necessity  and  excuse. 


HUMAN    BEAUTY.  33 

as  being  allowed  for  prevention  of  harm ;  but  ol  ferocitj  there 
is  no  excuse  nor  palliation,  but  it  is  pure  essence  of  tiger  and 
demon,  and  it  casts  on  the  human  face  the  paleness  alike  of  the 
horse  of  Death,  and  the  ashes  of  hell. 

These,  then,  are  the  four  passions  whose  presence  in  any 
degree  on  the  human  face  is  degradation.  But  of  all  passion 
it  is  to  be  generally  observed,  that  it  becomes  ignoble  cither 
when  entertained  respecting  unworthy  objects,  and  therefore 
shallow  or  unjustifiable,  or  when  of  impious  violence,  and  so 
destructive  of  human  dignity.  Thus  grief  is  noble  or  the 
reverse,  according  to  the  dignity  and  worthiness  of  the  object 
lamented,  and  the  grandeur  of  the  mind  enduring  it.  The 
sorrow  of  mortified  vanity  or  avarice  is  simply  disgusting,  even 
that  of  bereaved  aifection  may  be  base  if  selfish  and  unre- 
strained. All  grief  that  convulses  the  features  is  ignoble, 
because  it  is  commonly  shallow  and  certainly  temporary,  as  in 
children,  though  in  the  shock  and  shiver  of  a  strong  man's  fea- 
tures under  sudden  and  violent  grief  there  may  be  something  of 
sublime. 

11  That  beauty  is  not,  as  fond  men  misdeem 
An  outward  show  of  things,  that  only  seem  ; 
But  that  fair  lamp,  from  whose  celestial  ray 
That  light  proceeds,  which  kindleth  lovers'  fire, 
Shall  never  be  extinguished  nor  decay. 
Bnt  when  the  vital  spirits  do  expire, 
Unto  her  native  planet  shall  retire, 
For  it  is  heavenly  born  and  cannot  die, 
Being  a  parcel  of  the  purest  sky." 


34  BEAUTY. 


THE  IDEAL. 

The  perfect  idea  of  the  form  and  condition  in  which  all  the 
properties  of  the  species  are  fully  developed,  is  called  the  ideal 
of  the  species.  The  question  of  the  nature  of  ideal  conception 
of  species,  and  of  the  mode  in  which  the  mind  arrives  at  it, 
has  been  the  subject  of  so  much  discussion,  and  source  of  so 
much  embarrassment,  chiefly  owing  to  that  unfortunate  distinc- 
tion between  idealism  and  realism  which  leads  most  people  to 
imagine  the  ideal  opposed  to  the  real,  and  therefore  false,  that 
I  think  it  necessary  to  request  the  reader's  most  careful  attention 
to  the  following  positions. 

Any  work  of  art  which  represents,  not  a  material  object,  but 
the  mental  conception  of  a  material  object,  is  in  the  primary 
sense  of  the  word  ideal ;  that  is  to  say,  it  represents  an  idea, 
and  not  a  thing.  Any  work  of  art  which  represents  or  realizes 
a  material  object,  is,  in  the  primary  sense  of  the  term,  unideal. 

Ideal  works  of  art,  therefore,  in  this  first  sense,  represent  the 
result  of  an  act  of  imagination,  and  are  good  or  bad  in  pro- 
portion to  the  healthy  condition  and  general  power  of  the 
imaginxtion,  whose  acts  they  represent. 

Unideal  works  of  art  (the  studious  production  of  which  is 
termed  realism)  represent  actual  existing  things,  and  are  good 
or  bad  in  proportion  to  the  perfection  of  the  representation. 

All  entirely  bad  works  of  art  may  be  divided  into  those  which, 
professing  to  be  imaginative,  bear  no  stamp  of  imagination,  and 
are  therefore  false,  and  those  which  professing  to  be  represen- 
tative of  matter,  miss  of  the  representation  and  are  therefore 
nugatory. 

The  ideai,  therefore,  of  the  park  oak  is  full  size,  united 
terminal  curve,  equal  and  symmetrical  range  of  branches  on 
each  side  The  ideal  of  the  mountain  oak  may  be  anything, 


THE   IDEAL.  35 

twisting,  and  leaning,  and  shattered,  and  rock-encumbered,  so 
only  that  amidst  all  its  misfortunes,  it  maintain  the  dignity  of 
oak ;  and,  indeed,  I  look  upon  this  kind  of  tree  as  more  ideal 
than  the  other,  in  so  far  as  by  its  efforts  and  struggles,  more 
of  its  nature,  enduring  power,  patience  in  waiting  for,  and 
ingenuity  in  obtaining  what  it  wants,  is  brought  out,  and  so 
more  of  the  essence  of  oak  exhibited,  than  under  more  fortu- 
nate conditions. 

The  ranunculus  glacialis  might  perhaps,  by  cultivation,  be 
blanched  from  its  wan  and  corpse-like  paleness  to  purer  white, 
and  won  to  more  branched  and  lofty  development  of  its  ragged 
leaves.  But  the  ideal  of  the  plant  is  to  be  found  only  in  the 
last,  loose  stones  of  the  moraine,  alone  there ;  wet  with  the 
cold,  unkindly  drip  of  the  glacier  water,  and  trembling  as  the 
loose  and  steep  dust  to  which  it  clings  yields  ever  and  anon,  and 
shudders  and  crumbles  away  from  about  its  root. 

And  if  it  be  asked  how  this  conception  of  the  utmost  beauty 
of  ideal  form  is  consistent  with  what  we  formerly  argued 
respecting  the  pleasantness  of  the  appearance  of  felicity  in  the 
creature,  let  it  be  observed,  and  for  ever  held,  that  the  right  and 
true  happiness  of  every  creature,  is  in  this  very  discharge  of 
its  function,  and  in  those  efforts  by  which  its  strength  and 
'inherent  energy  are  developed :  and  that  the  repose  of  which 
we  also  spoke  as  necessary  to  all  beauty,  is,  as  was  then  stated, 
repose  not  of  inanition,  nor  of  luxury,  nor  of  irresolution,  but 
the  repose  of  magnificent  energy  and  being;  in  action,  the 
calmness  of  trust  and  determination ;  in  rest,  the  consciousness 
of  duty  accomplished  and  of  victory  won,  and  this  repose  and 
this  felicity  can  take  place  as  well  in  the  midst  of  trial  and 
tempest,  as  beside  the  waters  of  comfort;  they  perish  only 
when  the  creature  is  either  unfaithful  to  itself,  or  is  afflicted  by 
circumstances  unnatural  and  malignant  to  its  being,  and  for  the 
contending  with  which  it  was  neither  fitted  nor  ordained. 


86  BEAUTY. 

Hence  that  rest  which  is  indeed  glorious  is  of  the  chamois 
couched  breathless  on  his  granite  bed,  not  of  the  stalled  ox  over 
his  fodder;  and  that  happiness  which  is  indeed  beautiful  is  in  the 
bearing  of  those  trial  tests  which  are  appointed  for  the  proving 
of  every  creature,  whether  it  be  good,  or  whether  it  be  evil. 
Of  all  creatures  whose  existence  involves  birth,  progress,  and 
dissolution,  ideality  is  predicable  all  through  their  existence,  so 
that  they  be  perfect  with  reference  to  their  supposed  period  of 
being.  Thus  there  is  an  ideal  of  infancy,  of  youth,  of  old  age, 
of  death,  and  of  decay.  But  when  the  ideal  form  of  the  species 
is  spoken  of  or  conceived  in  general  terms,  the  form  is  under- 
stood to  be  of  that  period  when  the  generic  attributes  are 
perfectly  developed,  and  previous  to  the  commencement  of 
their  decline.  At  which  period  all  the  characters  of  vital  and 
typical  beauty  are  commonly  most  concentrated  in  them,  though 
the  arrangement  and  proportion  of  these  characters  varies  at 
different  periods,  youth  having  more  of  the  vigorous  beauty, 
and  age  of  the  reposing ;  youth  of  typical  outward  fairness,  and 
age  of  expanded  and  etherealized  moral  expression ;  the  babe, 
again,  in  some  measure  atoning  in  gracefulness  for  its  want  of 
strength,  so  that  the  balanced  glory  of  the  creature  continues 
in  solemn  interchange,  perhaps  even 

"  Filling  more  and  more  with  crystal  light, 
As  pensive  evening  deepens  into  night." 

Our  purity  of  taste  is  best  tested  by  its  universality.  If  we 
can  only  admire  this  thing  or  that,  we  may  be  sure  that  our 
cause  for  liking  is  of  a  finite  and  false  nature.  But  if  we  can 
perceive  beauty  in  everything  of  God's  doing,  we  may  argue 
that  we  have  reached  the  true  perception  of  its  universal  laws. 
Hence,  false  taste  may  be  known  by  its  fastidiousness,  by  its 
demands  of  pomp,  splendor,  and  unusual  combination  ;  by  its 
enjoyment  only  of  particular  styles  und  modes  of  things,  and 


THE    IDEAL.  81? 

by  its  pride  also,  for  it  is  for  ever  meddling,  mending,  ace  am  a  • 
lating,  and  self-exulting,  its  eye  is  always  upon  itself,  and  it 
tests  all  things  around  it  by  the  way  they  fit  it.  But  true 
taste  is  for  ever  growing,  learning,  reading,  worshipping,  lay- 
ing its  hand  upon  its  mouth  because  it  is  astonished,  casting 
its  shoes  from  off  its  feet  because  it  finds  all  ground  holy, 
lamenting  over  itself,  and  testing  itself  by  the  way  that  it  fits 
things.  And  it  finds  Avhereof  to  feed,  and  wLereby  to  grow 
in  all  things,  and  therefore  the  complaint  so  often  made  by 
young  artists  that  they  have  not  within  their  reach  materials, 
or  subjects  enough  for-  their  fancy,  is  utterly  groundless,  and 
the  sign  only  of  their  own  blindness  and  inefficiency;  for  there 
is  that  to  be  seen  in  every  street  and  lane  of  every  city — that 
to  be  felt  and  found  in  every  human  heart  and  jountenance, 
that  to  be  loved  in  every  road-side  weed  and  moss-ijro\vn  wall, 
which,  in  the  hands  of  faithful  men,  may  convey  emotions  of 
glory  and  sublimity  continual  and  exalted- 


flttrt  2. 
1ST  A.  T  U  R  E  . 


"  Nature  uever  did  betray 
The  heart  that  loved  her ;  'tis  her  privilege, 
Through  all  the  years  of  this  our  life,  to  lead 
From  joy  to  joy;  for  she  can  so  inform 
The  mind  that  is  within  us,  so  impress 
With  quietness  and  beauty,  and  so  feed 
With  lofty  thoughts,  that  neither  evil  tongues, 
Rash  judgments,  nor  the  sneers  of  selfish  men 
Shall  e'er  prevail  against  us,  or  disturb 
Our  cheerful  faith  that  all  which  we  behold 
IB  lull  of  blessings." 

WORDS  WOKTR. 


flart  2. 

NATURE. 
THE    SKY. 

IT  is  a  strange  thing  how  little  in  general  people  know 
about  the  sky.  It  is  the  part  of  creation  in  which  nature  has 
done  more  for  the  sake  of  pleasing  man,  more  for  the  sole  and 
evident  purpose  of  talking  to  him  and  teaching  him,  than  iu 
any  other  of  her  works,  and  it  is  just  the  part  in  which  we  least 
attend  to  her.  There  are  not  many  of  her  other  works  in 
which  some  more  material  or  essential  purpose  than  the  mere 
pleasing  of  man  is  not  answered  by  every  part  of  their  organ- 
ization ;  but  every  essential  purpose  of  the  sky  might,  so  far 
as  we  know,  be  answered,  if  once  in  three  days,  or  there- 
abouts, a  great  ugly  black  rain  cloud  were  brought  up  over 
the  blue,  and  everything  well  watered,  and  so  all  left  blue 
again  till  next  time,  with  perhaps  a  film  of  morning  and  even 
ing  mist  for  dew.  And  instead  of  this,  there  is  not  a  moment 
of  any  day  of  our  lives,  when  nature  is  not  producing  scene 
after  scene,  picture  after  picture,  glory  after  glory,  and  work- 
ing still  upon  such  exquisite  and  constant  principles  of  the 
most  perfect  beauty,  that  it  is  quite  certain  it  is  all  done  for 
us,  and  intended  for  our  perpetual  pleasure.  And  every  man, 
wherever  placed,  however  far  from  other  sources  of  interest 
or  of  beauty,  has  this  doing  for  him  constantly.  The  noblest 
scenes  of  the  earth  can  be  seen  and  known  but  by  few ;  it  is 
not  intended  that  man  should  live  always  in  the  midst  of 


42  NATURE. 

them,  he  injures  them  by  his  presence,  he  ceases  to  feel  them 
if  he  be  always  with  them ;  but  the  sky  is  for  all ;  bright  as  it 
is,  it  is  not  "  too  bright,  nor  good,  for  human  nature's  daily 
food ;"  it  is  fitted  in  all  its  functions  for  the  perpetual  comfort 
and  exalting  of  the  heart,  fo**  the  soothing  it  and  purifying  it 
from  its  dross  and  dust.  Sometimes  gentle,  sometimes  capri- 
cious, sometimes  awful,  never  the  same  for  two  momenta 
together ;  almost  human  in  its  passions,  almost  spiritual  in  its 
tenderness,  almost  divine  in  its  infinity,  its  appeal  to  what  is 
immortal  in  us,  is  as  distinct,  as  its  ministry  of  chastisement  or 
of  blessing  to  what  is  mortal  is  essential.  And  yet  we  nev.';i 
attend  to  it,  we  never  make  it  a  subject  of  thought,  but  as  it 
has  to  do  with  our  animal  sensations;  we  look  upon  all  by 
which  it  speaks  to  us  more  clearly  than  to  brutes,  upon  all 
which  bears  witness  to  the  intention  of  the  Supreme,  that  we 
are  to  receive  more  from  the  covering  vault  than  the  light 
and  the  dew  which  we  share  with  the  weed  and  the  worm, 
only  as  a  succession  of  meaningless  and  monotonous  accident, 
too  common  and  too  vain  to  be  worthy  of  a  moment  of  watch- 
fulness, or  a  glance  of  admiration.  If  in  our  moments  of  utter 
idleness  and  insipidity,  we  turn  to  the  sky  as  a  last  resource, 
which  of  its  phenomena  do  we  speak  of?  One  says  it  has 
been  wet,  and  another  it  has  been  windy,  and  another  it  has 
been  warm.  Who,  among  the  whole  chattering  crowd,  can 
tell  me  of  the  forms  and  the  precipices  of  the  chain  of  tall 
white  mountains  that  girded  the  horizon  at  noon  yesterday : 
Who  saw  the  narrow  sunbeam  that  came  out  of  the  south  and 
smote  upon  their  summits  until  they  melted  and  mouldered 
away  hi  a  dust  of  blue  rain  ?  AVho  saw  the  dance  of  the  dead 
clouds  when  the  sunlight  left  them  last  night,  and  the  west 
wind  blew  them  before  it  like  withered  loaves?  All  has 
passed,  unregretted  as  unseen;  or  if  the  apathy  be  ever 
shaken  off.  even  for  an  instant,  it  is  only  by  what  is  gross,  or 


THE    SKY.  43 

•what  is  extraordinary;  and  yet  it  is  not  in  tie  broad  and 
Gerce  manifestations  of  the  elemental  energies,  not  in  the  clash 
of  the  hail,  nor  the  drift  of  the  whirlwind,  that  the  highest 
characters  of  the  sublime  are  developed.  God  is  not  ir  the 
earthquake,  nor  in  the  fire,  but  in  the  still  small  voice.  They 
are  but  the  blunt  and  low  faculties  of  our  nature,  which  can 
only  be  addressed  through  lampblack  and  lightning.  It  is  in 
quiet  and  subdued  passages  of  unobtrusive  majesty,  the  deep, 
and  the  calm,  and  the  perpetual, — that  which  must  be  sought 
ere  it  is  seen,  and  loved  ere  it  is  understood, — things  which 
the  angels  work  out  for  us  daily,  and  yet  vary  eternally,  which 
are  never  wanting,  and  never  repeated,  which  are  to  be  found 
always  yet  each  found  but  once ;  it  is  through  these  that  the 
lesson  of  devotion  is  chiefly  taught,  and  the  blessing  of  beauty 
given.  These  are  what  the  artist  of  highest  aim  must  study ; 
it  is  these,  by  the  combination  of  which  his  ideal  is  to  be 
created;  these,  of  which  so  little  notice  is  ordinarily  taken 
by  common  observers,  that  I  fully  believe,  little  as  people  in- 
general  are  concerned  with  art,  more  of  their  ideas  of  sky  are 
derived  from  pictures  than  from  reality,  and  that  if  we  could 
examine  the  conception  formed  in  the  minds  of  most  educated 
persons  when  we  talk  of  clouds,  it  would  frequently  be  found 
composed  of  fragments  of  blue  and  white  reminiscences  of  the 
old  masters. 

"  The  chasm  of  sky  above  my  head 
Is  Heaven's  profoundest  azure.     No  domain 
For  fickle,  short-lived  clouds,  to  occupy, 
Or  to  pass  through;  but  rather  an  abyss 
In  which  the  everlasting  stars  abide, 
And  whose  soft  gloom,  and  boundless  depth,  might  tempt 
The  curious  eye  to  look  for  them  by  day." 

And,  in  his  American  Notes,  I  remember  Dickens  notices  the 
same  tmth,  describing  himself  as  lying  drowsily  on  the  barge 


44  NATURE. 

deck,  looking  not  at,  but  through  the  sky.  And  if  you  look 
intensely  at  the  pure  blue  of  a  serene  sky,  you  will  see  that 
there  is  a  variety  and  fulness  in  its  very  repose.  It  is  not  flat 
dead  color,  but  a  deep,  quivering,  transparent  body  of  pene- 
trable air,  in  which  you  trace  or  imagine  short,  falling  spots 
of  deceiving  light,  and  dim  shades,  faint,  veiled  vestiges  of 
dark  vapor. 

It  seems  to  me  that  in  the  midst  of  the  material  nearness 
of  the  heavens  God  means  us  to  acknowledge  His  own  imme- 
diate presence  as  visiting,  judging,  and  blessing  us.  "The 
earth  shook,  the  heavens  also  dropped,  at  the  presence  of 
God."  "  He  doth  set  his  bow  in  the  cloud,"  and  thus  renews, 
in  the  sound  of  every  drooping  swathe  of  rain,  his  promises  of 
everlasting  love.  "  In  them  hath  he  set  a  tabernacle  for  the 
sun ;"  whose  burning  ball,  which  without  the  firmament  would 
be  seen  as  an  intolerable  and  scorching  circle  in  the  blackness 
of  vacuity,  is  by  that  firmament  surrounded  with  gorgeous 
service,  and  tempered  by  mediatorial  ministries;  by  the  fir- 
mament  of  clouds  the  golden  pavement  is  spread  for  his 
chariot  wheels  at  morning;  by  the  firmament  of  clouds  the 
temple  is  built  for  his  presence  to  fill  with  light  at  noon  ;  by 
the  firmament  of  clouds  the  purple  veil  is  closed  at  evening 
round  the  sanctuary  of  his  rest ;  by  the  mists  of  the  firmament 
his  implacable  light  is  divided,  and  its  separated  fierceness 
appeased  into  the  soft  blue  that  fills  the  depth  of  distance  with 
its  bloom,  and  the  flush  with  which  the  mountains  burn  as  they 
drink  the  overflowing  of  the  dayspring.  And  hi  this  taber- 
nacling of  the  unendurable  sun  with  men,  through  the  shadows 
of  the  firmament,  God  would  seem  to  set  forth  the  stooping 
of  His  own  majesty  to  men,  upon  the  throne  of  the  firmament. 
As  the  Creator  of  all  the  worlds,  and  the  Inhabiter  of  eternity, 
we  cannot  behold  Him ;  but  as  the  Judge  of  the  earth  and 
the  Preserver  of  men,  those  heavens  are  indeed  His  dwelling- 


CLOUDS.  45 

place.  "  Swear  not,  neither  by  heaven,  for  it  is  God's  throue  •. 
nor  by  the  earth,  for  it  is  his  footstool."  And  all  those  pass- 
ings to  arid  fro  of  fruitful  shower  and  grateful  shade,  and  ah" 
those  visions  of  silver  palaces  built  about  the  horizon,  and 
voices  of  moaning  winds  and  threatening  thunders,  and  glories 
of  colored  robe  and  cloven  ray,  are  but  to  deepen  in  our 
hearts  the  acceptance,  and  distinctness,  and  dearness  of  the 
simple  words,  "  Our  Father,  which  art  in  heaven." 


CLOUDS. 

The  first  and  most  important  character  of  clouds,  is  depen- 
dent on  the  different  altitudes  at  which  they  are  formed. 
The  atmjosphere  may  be  conveniently  considered  as  divided 
into  three  spaces,  each  inhabited  by  clouds  of  specific  charac- 
ter altogether  different,  though,  in  reality,  there  is  no  distinct 
limit  fixed  between  them  by  nature,  clouds  being  formed  at 
every  altitude,  and  partaking,  according  to  their  altitude,  more 
or  less  of  the  characters  of  the  upper  or  lower  regions.  The 
scenery  of  the  sky  is  thus  formed  of  an  infinitely  graduated 
series  of  systematic  forms  of  clouds,  each  of  which  has  its  own 
region  in  which  alone  it  is  formed,  and  each  of  which  has 
specific  characters  which  can  only  be  properly  determined  by 
comparing  them  as  they  are  found  clearly  distinguished  by 
intervals'of  considerable  space.  I  shall  therefore  consider  the 
sky  as  divided  into  three  regions — the  upper  region,  or  region 
of  the  cirrus;  the  central  region,  or  region  of  the  stratus;  the 
lower  region,  or  the  region  of  the  rain-cloud. 

The  clouds  which  I  wish  to  consider  as  included  in  the  up- 
per region,  never  touch  even  the  highest  mountains  of  Europe, 


46  NATURE. 

and  may  therefore  be  looked  upon  as  never  formed  below  an 
elevation  of  at  least  15,000  feet;  they  are  the  motionless  mul- 
titudinous lines  of  delicate  vapor  with  which  the  blue  of  the 
open  sky  is  commonly  streaked  or  speckled  after  several  days 
of  fine  weather.  I  must  be  pardoned  for  giving  a  detailed 
description  of  their  specific  characters,  as  they  are  of  constant 
occurrence  in  the  works  of  modern  artists,  and  I  shall  have 
occasion  to  speak  frequently  of  them  in  future  parts  of  the 
work.  Their  chief  characters  are — 

First,  Symmetry :  they  are  nearly  always  arranged  in  some 
definite  and  evident  order,  commonly  in  long  ranks,  reaching 
sometimes  from  the  zenith  to  the  horizon,  each  rank  composed 
of  an  infinite  number  of  transverse  bars  of  about  the  same 
length,  each  bar  thickest  in  the  middle,  and  terminating  in  a 
traceless  vaporous  point  at  each  side;  the  ranks  are  in  the 
direction  of  the  wind,  and  the  bars  of  course  at  right  angles  to 
it.  The  groups  of  fine,  silky,  parallel  fibres,  terminating  in  a 
plumy  sweep,  are  vulgarly  known  as  "  mares'  tails." 

Secondly,  Sharpness  of  Edge :  The  edges  of  the  bars  of  the 
upper  clouds  which  are  turned  to  the  wind  are  often  the 
sharpest  which  the  sky  shows ;  no  outline  whatever  of  any 
other  kind  of  cloud,  however  marked  and  energetic,  ever  ap- 
proaches the  delicate  decision  of  those  edges. 

Thirdly,  Multitude :  The  delicacy  of  these  vapors  is  some- 
times carried  into  an  infinity  of  division.  Nor  is  nature  con- 
tent with  an  infinity  of  bars  or  lines  alone — each  bar  is  in 
its  turn  severed  into  a  number  of  small  undulatory  masses, 
more  or  less  connected  according  to  the  violence  of  the  wind. 
When  tliis  division  is  merely  effected  by  undulation,  the  cloud 
exactly  resembles  sea-sand  ribbed  by  the  tide  ;  but  when  the 
division  amounts  to  real  separation  we  have  the  mottled  or 
"  mackerel"  skies. 

Fourthly,  Purity  of  Color :  The  nearest  of  thesfi  clouds — 


CLOUDS.  4Y 

those  over  the  observer's  head,  being  at  least  three  miles 
above  him,  and  nearly  all  entering  the  ordinary  sphere  oi 
vision,  farther  from  him  still, — their  dark  sides  are  much 
grayer  and  cooler  than  those  of  other  clouds,  owing  to  their 
distance.  They  are  composed  of  the  purest  aqueous  vapor, 
free  from  all  foulness  of  earthy  gases,  and  of  this  in  the 
lightest  and  most  ethereal  state  in  which  it  can  be,  to  be 
visible.  Farther,  they  receive  the  light  of  the  sun  in  a  st  ite 
of  far  greater  intensity  than  lower  objects,  the  beams  being 
transmitted  to  them  through  atmospheric  air  far  less  dense, 
and  wholly  unaffected  by  mist,  smoke,  or  any  other  impurity. 
Hence  their  colors  are  more  pure  and  vivid,  and  their  white 
less  sullied  than  those  of  any  other  clouds. 

Lastly,  Variety :  Variety  is  never  so  conspicuous,  as  when 
it  is  united  with  symmetry.  The  perpetual  change  of  form  in 
other  clouds,  is  monotonous  in  its  very  dissimilarity,  nor  ia 
difference  striking  where  no  connection  is  implied ;  but  if 
through  a  range  of  barred  clouds,  crossing  half  the  heaven, 
all  governed  by  the  same  forces  and  falling  into  one  gene- 
ral form,  there  be  yet  a  marked  and  evident  dissimilarity 
between  each  member  of  the  great  mass — one  more  finely 
drawn,  the  next  more  delicately  moulded,  the  next  more 
gracefully  bent — each  broken  into  differently  modelled  and 
variously  numbered  groxips,  the  variety  is  doubly  striking, 
because  contrasted  with  the  perfect  symmetry  of  wliicb  it 
forms  a  part. 

Under  all,  perhaps  the  massy  outline  of  some  lower  cloud 
moves  heavily  across  the  motionless  buoyancy  of  the  upper 
lines,  and  indicates  at  once  their  elevation  and  their  repose. 

A  fine  and  faithful  description  of  these  clouds  is  given  by 
Wordsworth  in  "  The  Excursion." 

"  But  rays  of  light 
Now  suiderlj  diverging  from  the  orb, 


48  NA.TUUE. 

Retired  bel.md  the  mountain  tops, -or  veiled 

By  the  dense  air,  shot  upwards  to  the  crowu 

Of  the  blue  firmament — aloft — and  \\ide : 

And  multitudes  of  little  floating  clouds, 

Ere  we,  who  saw,  of  change  were  conscious,  pierced 

Through  their  ethereal  texture,  had  become 

Vivid  as  fire, — Clouds  separately  poised, 

Innumerable  multitude  of  forms 

Scattered  through  half  the  circle  of  the  sky ; 

And  giving  back,  and  shedding  each  on  eacli, 

With  prodigal  communion,  the  bright  hues 

Which  from  the  unapparent  fount  of  glory 

They  had  imbibed,  and  ceased  not  to  reoeive. 

That  which  the  heavens  displayed  the  liquid  deep 

Repeated,  but  with  unity  sublime." 

Their  slow  movement  Shelley  has  beautifully  touched  — 

"  Underneath  the  young  gray  dawn 
A  multitude  of  dense,  white  fleecy  clouds,  ^ 

Were  wandering  in  thick  flocks  along  the  mountains, 
Shepherded  by  tiie  slow,  unwilling  wind." 

If  you  watch  for  the  next  sunset,  when  there  are  a  consider- 
able number  of  these  cirri  in  the  sky,  you  will  see,  especially 
at  the  zenith,  that  the  sky  does  not  remain  of  the  same  color 
for  two  inches  together;  one  cloud  has  a  dark  side  of  cold 
blue,  and  a  fringe  of  milky  white ;  another,  above  it,  has  a 
dark  side  of  purple  and  an  edge  of  red ;  another,  nearer  the 
sun,  has  an  under-side  of  orange  and  an  edge  of  gold ;  these 
you  will  find  mingled  with,  and  passing  into  the  blue  of  the 
sky,  which  in  places  you  will  not  be  able  to  distinguish  from 
the  cool  grey  of  the  darker  clouds,  and  which  will  be  itself 
full  of  gradation,  now  pure  and  deep,  now  faint  and  feeble ; 
and  all  this  is  done,  not  in  large  pieces,  nor  on  a  large  scale, 
but  over  and  over  again  in  every  square  yard,  so  that  there  is 


THE   CENTRAL    CLOUD    REGION".  49 

no  single  part  nor  portion  of  the  whole  sky  which  has  not  in 
itself  variety  of  color  enough  for  a  separate  picture,  and  yet 
no  single  part  which  is  like  another,  or  which  has  not  some 
peculiar  source  of  beauty,  and  some  peculiar  arrangement  cf 
color  of  its  own. 


THE  CENTRAL   CLOUD   REGION, 

I  CONSIDER  as  including  all  clouds  which  are  the  usual  cha- 
racteristic of  ordinary  serene  weathei*,  and  which  touch  and 
envelope  the  mountains  of  Switzerland  ;  they  may  be  consi- 
dered as  occupying  a  space  of  air  ten  thousand  feet  in  height, 
extending  from  five  to  fifteen  thousand  feet  above  the  sea. 

These  clouds,  according  to  their  elevation,  appear  with 
great  variety  of  form,  often  paitaking  of  the  streaked  or  mot- 
tled character  of  the  higher  region,  anu  as  often,  when  the 
precursors  of  storm,  manifesting  forms  closely  connected  with 
the  lowest  rain  clouds ;  but  the  species  especially  character- 
istic of  the  central  region  is  a  white,  ragged,  irregular,  and 
scattered  vapor,  which  has  little  form  and  less  color. 

But  although  this  kind  of  cloud  is,  as  I  have  said,  typical 
of  the  central  region,  it  is  not  one  A\hich  nature  is  fond  of. 
She  scarcely  ever  lets  an  hour  pass  without  some  manifesta- 
tion of  finer  forms,  sometimes  approaching  the  upper  cirri, 
sometimes  tue  lower  cumulus.  And  then  in  the  lower  out- 
lines, we  have  the  nearest  approximation  which  nature  evei 
presents  to  the  clouds  of  Claude,  Salvator,  and  Potissin. 
When  vapor  collects  into  masses,  it  is  partially  rounded, 
clumsy,  and  ponderous,  as  if  it  would  tumble  out  of  the  sky, 

shaded  with  a  dull  gray,  and  totally  devoid  of  any  appear 

3 


50  NATURE. 

ancc  of  energy  or  motion.  Even  in  nature,  these  clouds  are 
comparatively  uninteresting,  scarcely  worth  raising  our  heads 
to  look  at ;  and  on  canvas,  valuable  only  as  a  means  of  intro- 
ducing light,  and  breaking  the  monotony  of  blue ;  yet  they 
are,  perhaps,  beyond  all  others  the  favorite  clouds  of  the 
Dutch  masters. 

The  originality  and  vigor  of  separate  conception  in  cloud 
forms,  give  to  the  scenery  of  the  sky  a  force  and  variety  no 
less  delightful  than  that  of  the  changes  of  mountain  outline  in 
a  hill  district  of  great  elevation ;  and  there  is  added  to  this 
a  spirit-like  feeling,  a  capricious,  mocking  imagery  of  passion 
and  life,  totally  different  from  any  effects  of  inanimate  form 
that  the  earth  can  show. 

The  minor  contours,  out  of  which  the  larger  outlines  arc 
composed,  are  mdeed  beautifully  curvilinear ;  but  they  are 
never  monotonous  in  their  curves.  First  comes  a  concave 
line,  then  a  convex  one,  then  an  angular  jag,  breaking  off 
into  spray,  then  a  downright  straight  line,  then  a  curve  auiiin, 
then  a  deep  gap,  and  a  place  where  all  is  lost  and  melted 
away,  and  so  on  ;  displaying  in  every  inch  of  the  form  re- 
newed and  ceaseless  invention,  setting  off  grace  with  rigidity, 
and  relieving  flexibility  with  force,  in  a  manner  scarcely  less 
admirable,  and  far  more  changeful  than  even  in  the  muscular 
forms  of  the  human  frame.  Nay,  such  is  the  exquisite  com- 
position of  all  this,  that  you  may  take  any  single  fragment  of 
any  cloud  in  the  sky,  and  you  •will  find  it  put  together  as  if 
there  had  been  a  year's  thought  over  the  plan  of  it,  arranged 
with  the  most  studied  inequality — with  the  most  delicate 
symmetry — with  the  most  elaborate  contrast,  a  picture  in 
itself.  You  may  try  every  other  piece  of  cloud  in  the  heaven, 
and  you  will  find  them  every  one  as  perfect,  and  yet  not  one 
in  the  least  like  another. 

When  rain  falls  on  a  mountain  composed  chiefly  of  barren 


THE    CENTUAL  CLOUD    REGION".  51 

rooks,  their  surfaces,  being  violently  heated  by  the  sun,  whose 
most  intense  warmth  always  precedes  rain,  occasion  sudden 
and  violent  evaporation,  actually  converting  the  first  show  er 
into  steam.  Consequently,  upon  all  such  hills,  on  the  com- 
mencement of  rain,  white  volumes  of  vapor  are  instantaneous- 
ly and  universally  formed,  which  rise,  are  absorbed  by  tbo 
atmosphere,  and  again  descend  in  rain,  to  rise  in  fresh  volumes 
until  the  surfaces  of  the  hills  are  cooled.  Where  there  is 
grass  or  vegetation,  this  effect  is  diminished  ;  where  there  is 
foliage  it  scarcely  takes  place  at  all.  Now  this  effect  has  evi 
dently  been  especially  chosen  by  Turner  for  Loch  Coriskin, 
not  only  because  it  enabled  him  to  relieve  its  jagged  forms 
with  veiling  vapor,  but  to  tell  the  tale  which  no  pencilling 
could,  the  story  of  its  utter  absolute  barrenness  of  unlichened, 
dead,  desolate  rock  : — 

"The  wildest  glen,  but  this,  can  show 
Some  touch  of  nature's  genial  glow, 
On  high  Benmore  green  mosses  grow 
And  heith-bells  bud  in  deep  Glenco'e. 
And  copse  on  Cruchan  Ben  ; 
But  here,  above,  around,  below, 
On  mountain,  or  in  glen, 
Nor  tree,  nor  plant,  nor  shrub,  nor  flower, 
Nor  ought  of  vegetative  power, 
The  wearied  eye  may  ken ; 
But  all  its  rocks  at  random  thrown, 
Black  waves,  bare  civgs,  and  banks  of  stone.' 

LORD  OF  THE  ISLES,  Canto  DT. 

"  Be  as  a  Presence  or  a  motion — one 
Among  the  many  there — while  the  mists 
Flying,  and  rainy  vapors,  call  out  shapes 
And  phat^.oms  from  the  crags  and  solid  earth, 
As  fast  as  a  musician  scatters  sounds 
Out  of  an  instrument." — 


62  NATURE. 

Stand  upon  the  peak  of  some  isolated  mountain  at  day- 
break, when  the  night-mists  first  rise  from  off  the  plains,  and 
watch  their  white  and  lake-like  fields  as  they  float  in  level 
bays  and  winding  gulphs  about  the  islanded  summits  oi  the 
lower  hills',  untouched  yet  by  more  than  dawn,  colder  and 
more  quiet  than  a  windless  sea  under  the  moon  of  midnight. 
Watch  when  the  first  sunbeam  is  sent  upon  the  silver  channels, 
how  the  foam  of  their  undulating  surface  parts  and  passes 
away ;  and  down  under  their  depths  the  glittering  city  and 
green  pasture  lie  like  Atlantis,  between  the  white  paths  of 
winding  rivers  ;  the  flakes  of  light  falling  every  moment  fastei 
and  broader  among  the  starry  spires,  as  the  wreathed  surges 
break  and  vanish  above  them,  and  the  confused  crests  and 
ridges  of  the  dark  hills  shorten  their  gray  shadows  upon  the 
plain.  Wait  a  little  longer,  and  you  shall  see  those  scattered 
mists  rallying  in  the  ravines  and  floating  up  towards  you, 
along  the  winding  valleys,  till  they  couch  in  quiet  masses, 
iridescent  with  the  morning  light,  upon  the  broad  breasts  ol 
the  higher  hills,  whose  leagues  of  massy  undulation  will  melt 
back  and  back  into  that  robe  of  material  light,  until  they  fade 
away,  lost  in  its  lustre,  to  appear  again  above,  in  the  serene 
heavon,  like  a  wild,  bright,  impossible  dream,  foundationless 
and  inaccessible,  their  very  bases  vanishing  in  the  unsubstan- 
tial and  mocking  blue  of  the  deep  lake  below.  Wait  yet  a 
little  longer,  and  you  shall  see  those  mists  gather  themselves 
into  white  towers,  and  stand  like  fortresses  along  the  promon- 
tories, massy  and  motionless,  only  piling  with  every  instant 
higher  and  higher  into  the  sky,  and  casting  longer  shadows 
athwart  the  rocks;  and  out  of  the  pale  blue  of  the  horizon 
you  will  see  forming  and  advancing  a  troop  of  narrow,  dark, 
pointed  vapors,  which  will  cover  the  sky,  inch  by  inch,  with 
their  gray  network,  and  take  the  light  off  the  landscape  with 
an  eclipse  which  will  stop  the  singing  of  the  birds  and  the 


THE    CENTRAL    CLOUD   REGION".  53 

motion  of  the  leaves  together  ;  and  then  you  will  see  horizon 
tal  bars  of  black  shadow  forming  under  them,  and  lurid 
wreaths  create  themselves,  you  know  not  how,  along  the 
shoulders  of  the  hills ;  you  never  see  them  form,  but  when 
you  look  back  to  a  place  which  was  clear  an  instant  ago,  there 
is  a  cloud  on  it,  hanging  by  the  precipices,  as  a  hawk  pauses 
over  his  prey.  And  then  you  will  hear  the  sudden  rush  of 
the  awakened  wind,  and  you  will  see  those- watch-towers  ol 
vapor  swept  away  from  their  foundations,  and  waving  curtain? 
of  opaque  rain  let  down  to  the  valleys,  swinging  from  the  bur 
dened  clouds  in  black,  bending  fringes,  or  pacing  in  pale  columns 
along  the  lake  level,  grazing  its  surface  into  foam  as  they  go. 
And  then,  as  the  sun  sinks,  you  shall  see  the  storm  drift  for  an 
Distant  from  off  the  hills,  leaving  their  broad  sides  smoking, 
and  loaded  yet  Avith  snow-white,  torn,  steam-like  rags  of 
capricious  vapor,  now  gone,  now  gathered  again  ;  while  the 
smouldering  sun,  seeming  not  far  away,  but  burning  like  a 
red-hot  ball  beside  you,  and  as  if  you  could  reach  it,  plunges 
through  the  rushing  wind  and  rolling  cloud  with  headlong 
fall,  as  if  it  meant  to  rise  no  more,  dyeing  all  the  air  about  it 
with  blood.  And  then  you  shall  hear  the  fainting  tempest  die 
in  the  hollow  of  the  night,  and  you  shall  see  a  green  halo 
kindling  on  the  summit  of  the  eastern  hills,  brighter — brighter 
yet,  till  the  large  white  circle  of  the  slow  moon  is  lifted  up 
among  the  barred  clouds,  step  by  step,  line  by  line  ;  star  after 
star  she  quenches  with  her  kindling  light,  setting  in  their  stead 
an  army  of  pale,  penetrable,  fleecy  wreaths  in  the  heaven,  to 
give  light  upon  the  earth,  which  move  together,  hand  in  hand, 
company  by  company,  troop  by  troop,  so  measured  in  their 
unity  of  motion,  that  the  whole  heaven  seems  to  roll  Avith 
them,  and  the  earth  to  reel  under  them.  And  then  wait  yet 
for  one  hour,  until  the  east  again  becomes  purple,  and  the 
heaving  mountains,  rolling  against  it  in  darkness,  like  waves 


54  NATURE. 

of  a  wild  sea,  are  drowned  one  by  one  in  the  glory  of  its 
burning;  watch  the  white  glaciers  blaze  in  their  winding 
paths  about  the  mountains,  like  mighty  serpents,  with  scales 
of  fire;  watch  the  columnar  peaks  of  solitary  snow,  kindling 
downwards,  chasm  by  chasm,  each  in  itself  a  new  morning ; 
their  long  avalanches  cast  down  in  keen  streams  brighter  than 
the  lightning,  sending  each  his  tribute  of  driven  snow,  like 
altar-smoke,  up  to  the  heaven ;  the  rose-light  of  their  silent 
domes  flushing  that  heaven  about  them  and  above  them, 
piercing  with  purer  light  through  its  purple  lines  of  lifted 
cloud,  casting  a  new  glory  on  every  wreath  as  it  passes  by, 
until  the  whole  heaven — one  scarlet  canopy — is  interwoven 
with  a  roof  of  waving  flame,  and  tossing,  vault  beyond  vault, 
as  with  the  drifted  wings  of  many  companies  of  angels ;  and 
then,  when  you  can  look  no  more  for  gladness,  and  when  you 
are  bowed  down  with  fear  and  love  of  the  Maker  and  Doer 
of  this,  tell  me  who  has  best  delivered  this  His  message  unto 
men! 


RAIN   CLOUDS. 

The  clouds  which  I  wish  to  consider  as  characteristic  of  the 
lower,  or  rainy  region,  differ  not  so  much  in  their  real  nature 
from  those  of  the.central  and  uppermost  regions,  as  in  appear 
nncr,  owing  to  their  greater  nearness.  For  the  central  clouds, 
and  perhaps  even  the  high  cirri,  deposit  moisture,  if  not  dis 
tinctly  rain,  as  is  sufficiently  proved  by  the  existence  of  snow 
on  the  highest  peaks  of  the  Hinialeh  ;  and  when,  on  any  such 
mountains,  we  are  brought  into  close  contact  with  the  central 
clouds,  we  find  them  little  differing  from  the  ordinary  rain 


RAIN    CLOUDS.  55 

cloud  of  the  plains,  except  by  being  slightly  less  dense  and 
dark.  But  the  apparent  differences,  dependent  on  proximity 
are  most  marked  and  important. 

In  the  first  place,  the  clouds  of  the  central  region  have,  as 
has  been  before  observed,  pure  and  aerial  grays  for  their  dark 
sides,  owing  to  their  necessary  distance  from  the  observer; 
and  as  this  distance  permits  a  multitude  of  local  phenomena 
capable  of  influencing  color,  such  as  accidental  sunbeams, 
refractions,  transparencies,  or  local  mists  and  showers,  to  be 
collected  into  a  space  apparently  small,  the  colors  of  these 
clouds  are  always  changeful  and  palpitating ;  and  whatever 
degree  of  gray  or  of  gloom  may  be  mixed  with  them  is  inva- 
riably pure  and  aerial.  But  the  nearness  of  the  rain-cloud 
rendering  it  impossible  for  a  number  of  phenomena  to  be  at 
once  visible,  makes  its  hue  of  gray  monotonous,  and  (by  losing 
the  blue  of  distance)  warm  and  brown  compared  to  that  of  the 
upper  clouds.  This  is  especially  remarkable  on  any  part  of  it 
which  may  happen  to  be  illumined,  which  is  of  a  brown,  bricky, 
ochrcous  tone,  never  bright,  always  coming  in  dark  outline  on 
the  lights  of  the  central  clouds.  But  it  is  seldom  that  this 
takes  place,  and  when  it  does,  never  over  large  spaces,  little 
being  usually  seen  of  the  rain-cloud  but  its  under  and  dark 
side.  This,  when  the  cloud  above  is  dense,  becomes  of  an  inky 
and  cold  gray,  and  sulphureous  and  lurid  if  there  be  thunder 
iu  the  air. 

To  the  region  of  the  rain-cloud  belong  also  all  those  phe- 
nomena of  drifted  smoke,  heat-haze,  local  mists  in  the  morning 
or  evening ;  in  valleys,  or  over  water,  mirage,  white  steaming 
vapor  rising  in  evaporation  from  moist  and  open  surfaces,  and 
every  thing  which  visibly  affects  the  condition  of  the  atmo- 
sphere without  actually  assuming  the  form  of  cloud.  These 
phenomena  are  as  perpetual  in  all  countries  as  they  are  beau- 
tiful,  and  afford  by  far  the  most  effective  and  valuable  means 


•r>ft  NATURE. 

which  the  painter  possesses,  for  modification  of  the  forms  of 
fixed  objects.  The  upper  clouds  are  distinct  and -coin para 
tivel}  opaque,  they  do  not  modify,  but  conceal ;  but  through 
the  rain-cloud,  and  its  accessory  phenomena,  all  that  is  beau, 
liful  may  be  made  manifest,  and  all  that  is  hurtful  concealed ; 
•tvhat  is  paltry  may  be  made  to  look  vast,  and  what  is  pon- 
derous, aerial;  mystery  may  be  obtained  without  obscurity, 
and  decoration  without  disguise.  And,  accordingly,  nature 
herself  uses  it  constantly,  as  one  of  her  chief  means  of  most 
perfect  effect;  not  in  one  country,  nor  another,  but  every- 
where —everywhere,  at  least,  where  there  is  anything  worth 
calling  landscape.  I  cannot  answer  for  the  desert  of  the 
Sahara,  but  I  know  that  there  can  be  no  greater  mistake,  than 
supposing  that  delicate  and  variable  effects  of  mist  and  rain- 
cloud  are  peculiar  to  northern  climates.  I  have  never  seen  in 
any  place  or  country  effects  of  mist  more  perfect  than  in  the 
Campagna  of  Rome,  and  among  the  hills  of  Sorrento.  We 
never  can  see  the  azure  so  intense  as  when  the  greater  part  of 
this  vapor  has  just  fallen  in  rain.  Then,  and  then  only,  pure 
blue  sky  becomes  visible  in  the  first  openings,  distinguished 
especially  by  the  manner  in  which  the  clouds  melt  into  it ; 
their  edges  passing  off  in  faint  white  threads  and  fringes, 
through  which  the  blue  shines  more  and  more  intensely,  till 
the  last  trace  of  vapor  is  lost  in  its  perfect  color.  It  is  only 
the  upper  white  clouds,  however,  which  do  this,  or  the  last 
fragments  of  rain-clouds,  becoming  white  as  they  disappear,  so 
that  the  blue  is  never  corrupted  by  the  cloud,  but  only  paled 
and  broken  with  pure  white,  the  purest  white  whk-h  the  sky 
ever  shows.  Thus  we  have  a  melting  and  palpitating  color, 
never  the  same  for  two  inches  together,  deepening  and 
broadening  here  and  there  into  intensity  of  perfect  azure,  then 
drifted  and  dying  away  through  every  tone  of  pure  pale  sky, 
into  the  snow  white  of  the  filmy  cloud.  Over  this  roll  the 


RAIN    CLOUDS.  57 


determined  edges  of  the  rain-clouds,  throwing  it  all  far 
as  a  retired  scene,  into  the  upper  sky. 

Not  long  ago  I  was  slowly  descending  the  first  turn  aftei 
you  leave  Albano.  It  had  been  wild  weather  when  I  left 
Home,  and  all  across  the"  Campagna  the  clouds  were  sweeping 
in  sulphurous  blue,  with  a  clap  of  thunder  or  two,  and  break- 
ing gleams  of  sun  along  the  Claudian  aqueduct,  lighting  up  the 
infinity  of  its  arches  like  the  bridge  of  chaos.  But  as  I  climbed 
'the  long  slope  of  the  Alban  mount,  the  storm  swept  finally  to 
the  north,  and  the  noble  outlines  of  the  domes  of  Albano,  and 
graceful  darkness  of  its  ilex  groves,  rose  against  pure  streaks 
of  alternate  blue  and  amber  ;  the  upper  sky  gradually  flash- 
ing through  the  last  fragments  of  rain-cloud  in  deep  palpitat- 
ing azure,  half  ether  and  half  dew.  The  noon-day  sun  came 
slanting  down  the  rocky  slopes  of  LaRiccia,  and  its  masses  of 
entangled  and  tall  foliage,  whose  autumnal  tints  were  mixed 
with  the  wet  verdure  of  a  thousand  evergreens,  were  pene- 
trated with  it  as  with  rain.  I  cannot  call  it  color,  it  was  con- 
flagration ;  purple,  and  crimson,  and  scarlet,  like  the  curtains 
of  God's  tabernacle.  The  rejoicing  trees  sank  into  the  valley 
in  showers  of  light,  every  separate  leaf  quivering  with  buoy- 
ant and  burning  life  ;  each,  as  it  turned  to  reflect  or  to  trans- 
mit the  sunbeam,  first  a  torch  and  then  an  emerald.  Far  up 
into  the  recesses  of  the  valley,  the  green  vistas,  arched  like  the 
hollows  of  mighty  waves  of  some  crystalline  sea,  with  the 
arbutus  flowers  clasped  along  their  flanks  for  foam,  and  silver 
flakes  of  orange-flower-like  spray  tossed  into  the  air,  around 
them,  breaking  over  the  grey  walls  of  rock,  into  a  thousand 
separate  stars,  fading  and  kindling  alternately  as  the  weak 
wind  lifted  and  let  them  fall.  Every  glade  of  grass  burned 
like  the  golden  floor  of  heaven,  opening  in  sudden  gleams  as 
the  foliage  broke  and  closed  above  it,  as  sheet  lightning  opene 
in  a  cloud  at  sunset.  The  motionless  masses  of  dark  rock  — 

3* 


58  NATURE. 

dark,  though  flushed  with  scarlet  lichen — casting  their  qmel 
shadows  across  its  restless  radiance,  the  fountain  underneath 
them  filling  its  marble  hollow  with  blue  mist  and  fitful  sound, 
and  over  ah"  the  multitudinous  bars  of  umber  and  rose,  the 
sacred  clouds  that  have  no  darkness,  and  only  exist  to  illu 
mine,  were  seen  hi  fathomless  intervals  between  the  solemn 
and  orbed  repose  of  the  stone  pines,  passing  to  lose  themselves 
in  the  last  white  blinding  lustre  of  the  measureless  line,  where 
the  Campagna  melted  into  the  blaze  of  tbe  sea. 

The  woods  and  waters  which  were  peopl°d  by  the  Greek 
with  typical  life  were  not  different  from  those  which  now 
wave  and  murmur  by  the  ruins  of  his  shrines.  With  their 
visible  and  actual  forms  was  his  imagination  filled,  and  the 
beauty  of  its  incarnate  creatures  can  only  be  understood 
among  the  pure  realities  which  originally  modelled  their  con- 
ception. If  divinity  be  stamped  upon  the  features,  or  appa- 
rent in  the  form  of  the  spiritual  creature,  the  mind  will  not  be 
shocked  by  its  appearing  to  ride  upon  the  whirlwind,  and 
trample  on  the  storm ;  but  if  mortality,  no  violation  of  the 
characters  of  earth  will  forge  one  single  link  to  bind  it  to 
heaven. 

Though  Nature  is  constantly  beautiful,  she  does  not  exhibit 
her  highest  powers  of  beauty  constantly,  for  then  they  would 
satiate  us  and  pall  upon  the  senses.  It  is  necessary  to  their 
appreciation  that  they  should  be  rarely  t-hown.  Her  finest 
(ouches  are  things  which  must  be  watched  for  ;  her  most  per- 
fect passages  of  beauty  are  the  most  evanescent.  She  is  con- 
si  antly  doing  something  beautiful  for  us,  but  it  is  something 
which  she  has  not  done  before  and  will  not  do  ng;tin; — some 
exhibition  of  her  general  powers  in  particular  circumstances, 
ivliich  if  we  do  not  catch  at  the  instant  it  is  passing,  will  not 


RAIN    CLOUDS.  59 

be  repeated  for  us.  Now,  they  are  these  evanescent  passages 
of  perfected  beauty,  these  perpetually  varied  examples  of 
utmost  power,  which  the  artist  ought  to  seek  for  and  arrest. 

Perhaps  there  is  no  more  impressive  scene  on  earth  than 
the  solitary  extent  of  the  Campagna  of  Rome,  under  evening 
light.  Let  the  reader  imagine  himself,  for  a  moment,  with- 
drawn from  the  sounds  and  motions  of  the  living  world,  and 
Bent  forth  alone  into  this  wild  and  wasted  plain.  The  earth 
yields  and  crumbles  beneath  his  foot,  tread  he  never  so  lightly, 
for  its  substance  is  white,  hollow,  and  carious,  like  the  dusty 
wreck  of  the  bones  of  men.  The  long,  knotted  grass  waves 
and  tosses  feebly  in  the  evening  wind,  and  the  shadows  of  its 
motion  shake  feverishly  along  the  banks  of  ruin  that  lift  them- 
selves to  the  sunlight.  Hillocks  of  mouldering  earth  heave 
abound  him,  as  if  the  dead  beneath  were  struggling  in  their 
sleep  ;  scattered  blocks  of  black  stone,  four  square,  remnants 
of  mighty  edifices,  not  one  left  upon  another,  lie  upon  them, 
to  keep  them  down.  A  dull  purple,  poisonous  haze  stretches 
level  along  the  desert,  veiling  its  spectral  wrecks  of  massy 
ruins,  on  whose  rents  the  red  light  rests,  like  dying  fire 
on  defiled  altars.  The  blue  ridge  of  the  Alban  Mount,  lifts 
itself  against  a  solemn  space  of  green,  clear,  quiet  sky. 
Watchtowers  of  dark  clouds  stand  steadfastly  along  the  pro- 
montories of  the  Apennines.  From  the  plain  to  the  mountains, 
the  shattered  aqueducts,  pier  beyond  pier,  melt  into  the  dark 
ness,  like  sLadowy  and  countless  troops  of  funeral  mourners 
passing  from  a  nation's  grave. 


60  NATURE. 


WATER. 

Of  all  inorganic  substances,  acting  in  their  own  proper 
nature,  and  without  assistance  or  combination,  water  is  the 
most  wonderful.  If  we  think  of  it  as  the  source  of  all  the 
changefulness  and  beauty  which  we  have  seen  in  clouds;  then 
as  the  instrument  by  which  the  earth  we  have  contemplated 
was  modelled  into  symmetry,  and  its  crags  chiselled  into 
grace ;  then  as,  in  the  form  of  snow,  it  robes  the  mountains  it 
has  made,  with  that  transcendent  light  which  AVC  could  not 
have  conceived  if  we  had  not  seen ;  then  as  it  exists  in  the 
foam  of  the  torrent — in  the  iris  which  spans  it,  in  the  morning 
mist  which  rises  from  it,  in  the  deep  crystalline  pools  Avlu'eh 
mirror  its  hanging  shore,  in  the  broad  lake  and  glancing 
river ;  finally,  in  that  which  is  to  all  human  minds  the  best 
emblem  of  unwearied,  unconquerable  power,  the  wild,  various, 
fantastic,  tameless  unity  of  the  sea;  what  shall  we  compare  to 
this  mighty,  this  universal  element,  for  glory  and  for  beauty? 
or  how  shall  we  follow  its  eternal  changefulness  of  feeling  ?  It 
is  like  trying  to  paint  a  soul. 

Few  people,  comparatively,  have  ever  seen  the  effect  on  the 
sea  of  a  powerful  gale  continued  without  intermission  for  three 
or  four  days  and  nights,  and  to  those  who  have  not  I  believe 
it  must  be  unimaginable,  not  from  the  mere  force  or  si/.e  of 
surge,  but  from  the  complete  annihilation  of  the  limit  between 
s'-a  and  air.  The  water  from  its  prolonged  agitation  is  beaten, 
not  into  mere  creaming  foam,  but  into  masses  of  accumulated 
yeast,*  which  hangs  in  ropes  and  wreaths  from  wave  to  wave, 

*  The  "  yesty  waves  "  of  Shakspeare  have  made  the  likeness  famPjar.  and 
pro'oably  most  readers  take  the  expression  as  merely  equivalent  to  "  foamy  ;" 
but  Shakwpeare  knew  better.  Sea-foam  does  not,  unuo.  urdi  iary  cire'iin- 
Btancc-s,  last  a  moment  after  it  is  formed,  but  disappears,  a£  above  described  in 


WATER.  61 

and  where  one  curls  over  to  break,  form  a  festocn  like  a 
drapery,  from  its  edge ;  these  are  taken  np  by  the  wind,  not 
in  dissipating  dust,,  but  bodily,  in  writhing,  hanging,  coiling 
masses,  which  make  the  air  white  and  thick  as  with  snow, 
only  the  flakes  are  a  foot  or  two  long  each ;  the  surges  them- 
selves are  full  of  foam  in  their  very  bodies,  underneath,  making 
them  white  all  through,  as  the  water  is  under  a  great  cata- 
ract ;  and  their  masses,  being  thus  half  water  and  half  air,  are 
torn  to  pieces  by  the  wind  whenever  they  rise,  and  carried 
away  in  roaring  smoke,  which  chokes  and  strangles  like  actual 
water.  Add  to  this,  that  when  the  air  has  been  exhausted  of 
its  moisture  by  long  rain,  the  spray  of  the  sea  is  caught  by  it 
and  covers  its  surface  not  merely  with  the  smoke  of  finely 
divided  water,  but  with  boiling  mist ;  imagine  also  the  low 
rain-clouds  brought  down  to  the  very  level  of  the  sea,  as  I 

a  mere  white  film.  But  the  foam  of  a  prolonged  tempest  is  altogether  differ 
cut ;  it  is  "  whipped  "  foam, — thick,  permanent,  and,  in  a  foul  or  discolored 
sea,  very  ugly,  especially  in  the  way  it  hangs  about  the  tops  of  the  waves,  and 
gathers  into  clotted  concretions  before  the  driving  wind.  The  sea  looks  truly 
working  or  fermenting.  The  following  passage  from  Fennimore  Cooper  is  an 
interesting  confirmation  of  the  rest  of  the  above  description,  which  may  be 
depended  upon  as  entirely  free  from  exaggeration: — "For  the  first  time  1  now 
witnessed  a  tempest  at  sea.  Gales,  and  pretty  hard  ones,  I  had  often  seen, 
but  the  force  of  the  wind  on  this  occasion  as  much  exceeded  tha^in  ordinaiy 
gales  of  wind,  as  the  force  of  these  had  exceeded  that  of  a  whole-sail  breeze. 
The  seas  seemed  crashed ;  the  pressure  of  the  swooping  atmosphere,  as  the 
currents  of  the  air  went  howling  over  the  surface  of  the  ocean,  fairly  prevent- 
ing them  from  rising;  or  where  a  mound  of  water  did  appear,  it  was  scooped 
up  and  borne  off  hi  spray,  as  the  axe  dubs  inequalities  from  the  log.  When 
the  clay  returned,  a  species  of  lurid,  sombre  light  was  diffused  over  the  watery 
waste,  though  nothing  was  visible  but  the  ocean  and  the  ship.  Even  the  se* 
biros  seemed  to  have  taken  refuge  in  the  caverns  of  the  adjacent  coast,  none 
reappearing  with  the  dawn.  The  air  was  full  of  spray,  and  it  was  with  diffi- 
culty that  the  eye  could  penetrate  as  far  into  the  humid  atmospl  are  as  haif  a 
mile."  Half  a  mile  is  au  ^-er-esthnate  in  const. 


62  NATURE. 

nave  often  seen  them,  whirling  and  flying  in  rags  and  frag 
ments  from  wave  to  wave ;  and  finally,  conceive  the  surges 
themselves  in  their  utmost  pitch  of  power,  velocity,  vastness, 
and  madness,  lifting  themselves  in  precipices  and  peaks,  fur- 
rowed with  their  whirl  of  ascent,  through  all  this  chaos,  and 
you  will  understand  that  there  is  indeed  no  distinction  left 
between  the  sea  and  air ;  that  no  object,  nor  horizon,  nor  any 
landmark  or  natural  evidence  of  position  is  left ;  that  the 
heaven  is  all  spray,  and  the  ocean  all  cloud,  and  that  you  can 
see  no  farther  in  any  direction  than  you  could  see  through  a 
cataract.  Few  people  have  had  the  opportunity  of  seeing  the 
sea  at  such  a  time,  and  when  they  have,  cannot  face  it.  To 
hold  by  a  mast  or  a  rock,  and  watch  it,  is  a  prolonged  endur- 
ance of  drowning  which  few  people  have  courage  to  go 
through.  To  those  who  have,  it  is  one  of  the  noblest  It 
of  nature. 

All  rivers,  small  or  large,  agree  in  one  character  ;  they  like 
to  lean  a  little  on  one  side ;  they  cannot  bear  to  have  their 
channels  deepest  in  the  middle,  but  will  always,  if  they  can, 
have  one  bank  to  sun  themselves  upon,  and  another  to  get 
cool  under ;  one  shingly  shore  to  play  over,  where  they  may 
be  shallow,  and  foolish,  and  childlike  ;  and  another  steep  shore, 
under  which  they  can  pause  and  purify  themselves,  and  get 
their  strength  of  waves  fully  together  for  due  occasions 
Rivers  in  this  way  are  just  like  Aviso  men,  who  keep  one  side 
of  their  life  for  p!  ay,  and  another  for  work;  and  can  be  bril 
liant,  and  chattering,  and  transparent  when  they  arc  at  eas.-. 
and  yet  take  deep  counsel  on  thj  other  side  when  they  set 
themselres  to  the  main  purpose.  And  rivers  are  just  in  this 
divided,  also,  like  wicked  and  good  men  ;  the  good  rivers  have 
serviceable  ^ep  places  all  along  their  banks  that  ships  can  s:iil 
in,  but  the  wicked  rivers  go  scoopingly,  irregularly,  under 
their  banks  until  they  g.  t  full  o."  strangling  eddies,  which  no 


WATEK.  63 

boat  can  row  over  without  being  twisted  against  the  ro  rks, 
and  pools  like  wells  which  no  one  can  get  out  of  but  the 
water-kelpie  that  lives  at  the  bottom ;  but,  wicked  or  good, 
the  rivers  all  agree  in  having  two  sides. 

Stand  for  half  an  hour  beside  the  fall  of  Schaffhausen,  on 
the  north  side  where  the  rapids  are  long,  and  watch  how  the 
vault  of  water  first  bends,  unbroken,  in  pure,  polished  velo- 
city, over  the  arching  rocks  at  the  brow  of  the  cataract, 
covering  them  with  a  dome  of  crystal  twenty  feet  thick — so 
swift  that  its  motion  is  unseen  except  when  a  foam  globe 
from  above  darts  over  it  like  a  falling  star ;  and  how  the  trees 
are  lighted  above  it  under  their  leaves,  at  the  instant  that  it 
breaks  into  foam ;  and  how  all  the  hollows  of  that  foam  burn 
with  green  fire  like  so  much  shattering  chrysoprase ;  and  how, 
ever  and  anon,  startling  you  with  its  white  flash,  a  jet  of  spray 
leaps  hissing  out  of  the  fall  like  a  rocket,  bursting  in  the  wind 
and  driven  away  in  dust,  filling  the  air  with  light ;  and  how, 
through  the  curdling  wreaths  of  the  restless,  crashing  abyss 
below,  the  blue  of  the  water,  paled  by  the  foam  in  its  body, 
showers  purer  than  the  sky  through  white  rain-cloud ;  while 
the  shuddering  iris  stoops  in  tremulous  stillness  over  all, 
fading  and  flushing  alternately  through  the  choking  spray 
and  shattered  sunshine,  hiding  itself  at  last  among  the  thick 
golden  leaves  which  toss  to  and  fro  in  sympathy  with  the 
wild  water ;  their  dripping  masses  lifted  at  intervals,  like 
sheaves  of  loaded  corn,  by  some  stronger  gush  from  the 
cataract,  and  bowed  again  upon  the  nK*.sy  rocks  as  its  roa. 
die's  away ;  the  dew  gushing  from  their  thick  branches  through 
drooping  clusters  of  emerald  herbage,  and  sparkling  in  white 
threads  along  the  dark  rocks  of  the  shore,  feeding  the  lichens 
which  chase  and  checker  them  Avith  purple  and  silver.  There 
is  hardly  a  road-side  pond  or  pool  which  has  not  as  much 


64  NATURE. 

landscape  in  it  as  above  it.  It  is  not  the  brown,  muddy, 
dull  thing  we  suppose  it  to  be;  it  has  a  heart  like  ourselves. 
and  in  the  bottom  of  that  there  are  the  boughs  of  the  tall 
trees,  and  the  blades  of  the  shaking  grass,  and  all  manner  of 
hues,  of  variable,  pleasant  light  out  of  the  sky ;  nay,  the  ugly 
gutter,  that  stagnates  over  the  drain  bars,  in  the  heart  of  the 
foul  city,  is  not  altogether  base;  down  in  that,  it'  you  will 
look  deep  enough,  you  may  see  the  dark,  serious  blue  of  far- 
off  sky,  and  the  passing  of  pure  clouds.  It  is  at  your  own 
will  that  you  see  in  that  despised  stream,  either  the  refuse  of 
the  street,  or  the  image  of  the  sky — so  it  is  with  almost  all 
other  things  that  we  unkindly  despise. 

When  water,  not  in  very  great  body,  runs  in  a  rocky  bed 
much  interrupted  by  hollows,  so  that  it  can  rest  every  now 
and  then  in  a  pool  as  it  goes  along,  it  does  not  acquire  a  con- 
tinuous velocity  of  motion.  It  pauses  after  every  leap,  and 
curdles  about,  and  rests  a  little,  and  then  goes  on  again  ;  and 
if  in  this  comparatively  tranquil  and  rational  state  of  mind  it 
meets  with  an  obstacle,  as  a  rock  or  stone,  it  parts  on  each 
side  of  it  with  a  little  bubbling  foam,  and  goes  round ;  if  it 
come  to  a  step  in  its  bed,  it  leaps  it  lightly,  and  then  after  a 
little  plashing  at  the  bottom,  stops  again  to  take  breath.  But 
if  its  bed  be  on  a  continuous  slope,  not  much  interrupted  by 
hollows,  so  that  it  cannot  rest,  or  if  its  own  mass  be  so  in- 
creased by  flood  that  its  usual  resting-places  are  not  sufficient 
for  it,  but  that  it  is  perpetually  pushed  out  of  them  by  the 
following  current,  before  it  has  come  to  tranquillise  itself,  it 
of  course  gains  velocity  with  every  yard  that  it  runs;  the  im- 
petus got  at  one  leap  is  carried  to  the  credit  of  the  next,  until 
(he  whole  stream  becomes  one  mass  of  unchecked,  accelerat- 
ing motion.  Now  when  water  in  this  state  comes  to  an 
obstacle,  it  does  not  part  at  it,  but  clears  it  like  a  race-horse ; 
and  when  it  comes  to  a  hollow,  it  does  not  fill  it  up  and  run 


WATER.  05 

out  leisurely  at  th.3  other  side,  but  it  rushes  down  into  it  and 
comes  up  again  on  the  other  side,  as  a  ship  into  the  ho.low 
of  the  sea.  Hence  the  whole  appearance  of  the  bed  of  the 
si  ream  is  changed,  and  all  the  lines  of  the  water  altered  in 
their  nature.  The  quiet  stream  is  a  succession  of  leaps  and 
pools ;  the  leaps  are  light  and  springy,  and  parabolic,  and  make 
a  great  deal  of  splashing  when  they  tumble  into  the  pool , 
then  we  have  a  space  of  quiet  curdling  water,  and  another 
similar  leap  below.  But  the  stream  when  it  has  gained  an 
impetus  takoe  the  shape  of  its  bed,  never  stops,  is  equally 
deep  and  equally  swift  everywhere,  goes  down  into  every 
hollow,  not  with  a  leap,  but  with  a  swing,  not  foaming,  nor 
splashing,  but  in  the  bending  line  of  a  strong  sea-wave,  and 
comes  up  again  on  the  other  side,  over  rock  and  ridge,  with 
the  ease  of  a  bounding  leopard ;  if  it  meet  a  rock  three  or 
four  feet  above  the  level  of  its  bed,  it  will  neither  part  nor 
foam,  nor  express  any  concern  about  the  matter,  but  clear  it 
in  a  smooth  dome  of  water,  without  apparent  exertion,  coming 
down  again  as  smoothly  on  the  other  side ;  the  w^hole  surface 
of  the  surge  being  drawn  into  parallel  lines  by  its  extreme 
velocity,  but  foamless,  except  in  places  where  the  form  of  the 
bed  opposes  itself  at  some  direct  angle  to  such  a  line  of  fall,  and 
causes  a  breaker ;  so  that  the  whole  river  has  the  appearance 
of  a  deep  and  raging  sea,  with  this  only  difference,  that  the 
torrent-waves  always  break  backwards,  and  sea-waves  for- 
wards. Thus,  then,  in  the  water  which  has  gained  an  impetus, 
we  have  the  most  exquisite  arrangements  of  curved  lines,  per- 
petually changing  from  convex  to  concave,  and  vice  versd, 
following  every  swell  and  hollow  of  the  bed  with  their  modu 
latlhg  grace,  and  all  in  unison  of  motion,  presenting  perhaps 
the  most  beautiful  series  of  inorganic  forms  which  nature  can 
possibly  produce ;  for  the  sea  runs  too  much  into  similar  and 
concave  curves  with  sharp  edges,  but  every  motion  of  the 


66  NATURE. 

torrent  is  united,  and  all  its  curves  are  modifications  of  beau- 
l,tiful  line. 

Every  fountain  and  river  from  the  inch-deep  streamlet  thai 
crosses  the  village  lane  in  trembling  clearness,  to  the  massy 
and  silent  march  of  the  everlasting  multitude  of  waters  in 
Amazon  or  Ganges,  owe  their  play,  and  purity,  and  power,  to 
the  ordained  elevations  of  the  earth.  Gentle  or  steep,  ex- 
tended or  abrupt,  some  determined  slope  of  the  earth's  sur- 
face is  of  course  necessary  before  any  wave  can  so  much  as 
overtake  one  sedge  in  its  pilgrimage ;  and  how  seldom  do  we 
enough  consider,  as  we  walk  beside  the  margins  of  our  plea- 
Bant  brooks,  how  beautiful  and  wonderful  is  that  ordinance,  of 
which  every  blade  of  grass  that  waves  in  their  clear  water  is 
a  perpetual  sign ;  that  the  dew  and  rain  fallen  on  the  face  of 
the  earth  shall  find  no  resting-place;  shall  find,  on  the  contrary, 
fixed  channels  traced  for  them,  from  the  ravines  of  the  central 
crests  down  which  they  roar  in  sudden  ranks  of  foam,  to  the 
dark  hollows  beneath  the  banks  of  lowland  pasture,  round 
which  they  must  circle  slowly  among  the  stems  and  beneath 
the  leaves  of  the  lilies ;  paths  prepared  for  them,  by  which,  at 
some  appointed  rate  of  journey,  they  must  evermore  descend, 
sometimes  slow  and  sometimes  swift,  but  never  pausing ;  the 
daily  portion  of  the  earth  they  have  to  glide  over  marked 
for  them  at  each  successive  sunrise,  the  place  which  has  known 
them  knowing  them  no  more,  and  the  gateways  of  guarding 
mountains  opened  for  them  in  cleft  and  chasm,  none  letting 
them  in  their  pilgrimage;  and,  from  far  off,  the  great  lieait 
of  the  sea  calling  them  to  itself!  Deep  calleth  unto  deep.  1 
know  not  which  of  the  two  is  the  more  wonderful — that  calm, 
gra  lated,  invisible  slope  of  the  champaign  land,  which  gives 
motion  to  the  stream;  or  that  passage  cloven  for  it  through 
the  ranks  of  hill,  which,  necessary  for  the  health  of  the  land 


WATER.  67 

immediately  around  them,  would  yet,  unless  so  supernaturally 
divided,  have  fatally  intercepted  the  flow  of  the  waters  from 
far-off  countries.  When  did  the  great  spirit  of  the  river 
first  knock  at  those  adamantine  gates  ?  When  did  the  portei 
open  to  it.  and  cast  his  keys  away  for  ever,  lapped  in  whirling 
Band  ?  I  am  not  satisfied — no  one  should  be  satisfied — with 
that  vague  answer, — the  river  cut  its  way.  Not  so.  The 
liver  found  its  way. 

It  was  a  maxim  of  Raffaelle's  that  the  artist's  object  was  to 
make  things  not  as  Nature  makes  them,  but  as  she  would 
make  them ;  as  she  ever  tries  to  make  them,  but  never  suc- 
ceeds, though  her  aim  may  be  deduced  from  a  comparison  of 
her  effects;  just  as  if  a  number  of  archers  had  aimed  unsuc- 
cessfully at  a  mark  upon  a  wall,  and  this  mark  were  then 
removed,  we  could  by  the  examination  of  their  arrow- 
marks  point  out  the  probable  position  of  tne  spot  aimed  at, 
with  a  certainty  of  being  nearer  to  it  than  any  of  their  shots. 

We  have  most  of  us  heard  of  original  sin,  and  may  perhaps, 
in  our  modest  moments,  conjecture  that  we  are  not  quite 
what  God,  or  Nature,  would  have  us  to  be.  llaffaelle  had 
something  to  mend  in  humanity:  I  should  like  to  have  seen 
him  mending  a  daisy,  or  a  pease-blossom,  or  a  moth,  or  a  inu& 
tard-seed,  or  any  other  of  God's  slightest  works !  If  he  had 
accomplished  that,  one  might  have  found  for  him  more  respec- 
table employment,  to  set  the  stars  in  better  order,  perhaps 
(they  seem  grievously  scattered  as  they  are,  and  to  be  of  all 
manner  of  shapes  and  sizes,  except  the  ideal  shape,  and  the 
proper  size);  or,  to  give  us  a  corrected  view  of  the  ocean,  that 
at  least  seems  a  very  irregular  and  improveable  thing :  the 
very  fishermen  do  not  know  this  day  how  far  it  will  reach, 
driven  up  before  the  west  wind.  Perhaps  some  one  else  does, 
but  that  is  not  our  business.  Let  us  go  down  and  stand  ou 


08  NATURE.  ^ 

the  beach  by  the  sea — the  great  irregular  sea,  and  count 
whether  the  thunder  of  it  is  not  out  ot  time — one, — t  ivo : — 
here  comes  a  well-formec  wave  at  last,  trembling  a  little  at 
the  top,  but  on  the  whole,  orderly.  So!  Crash  among  the 
shingle,  and  up  as  far  as  this  grey  pebble !  Xow,  stand  by  and 
watch.  Another: — Ah,  careless  wave!  why  couldn't  you  have 
kept  your  crest  on  ?  It  is  all  gone  away  into  spray,  striking 
up  against  the  cliffs  there — I  thought  as  much — missed  the 
mark  by  a  couple  of  feet!  Another: — How  now,  impatient 
one!  couldn't  you  have  waited  till  your  friend's  remix  was 
done  with,  instead  of  rolling  yourself  up  with  it  in  that 
unseemly  manner?  You  go  for  nothing.  A  fourth,  and  a 
goodly  one  at  last !  What  think  we  of  yonder  slow  rise,  and 
crystalline  hollow,  without  a  flaw  ?  Steady,  good  wave !  not  so 
fast !  not  so  fast!  Where  are  you  coming  to  ?  This  is  too  bad  ; 
two  yards  over  the  mark,  and  ever  so  much  of  you  in  our  face 
besides;  and  a  wave  which  we  had  some  hope  of,  behind 
there,  broken  all  to  pieces  out  at  sea,  and  laying  a  great  white 
tablecloth  of  foam  all  the  way  to  the  shore,  as  if  the  marine 
gods  were  to  dine  off  it !  Alas,  for  these  unhappy  "  arrow 
shots"  of  Nature !  She  will  never  hit  her  mark  with  those 
unruly  waves  of  hers,  nor  get  one  of  them  into  the  ideal 
shape,  if  we  wait  for  a  thousand  years. 


MOUNTAINS. 


"  And  God  said,  Let  the  waters  which  are  under  the  heaven 
be  gathered  unto  one  place,  and  let  the  dry  land  appear." 
We  do  not,  perhaps,  often  enough  consider  the  deep  signi- 
ficance of  this  sentence.  We  are  too  apt  to  receive  it  as  the 
description  of  an  event  vaster  only  in  its  extent,  not  in  its 


MOUNTAINS.  69 

nature,  than  the  compelling  the  Red  Sea  to  draw  back  that 
Israel  might  pass  by.  We  imagine  the  Deity  in  like  mannei 
rolling  the  waves  of  the  greater  ocean  together  on  a  heap, 
and  setting  bars  and  doors  to  them  eternally. 

But  there  is  a  far  deeper  meaning  than  this  in  the  solemn 
vrords  •  of  Genesis,  and  in  the  correspondent  verse  of  the 
Psalm,  "His  hands  prepared  the  dry  land."  Up  to  that 
moment  the  earth  had  been  void,  for  it  had  been  without  form. 
The  command  that  the  waters  should  be  gathered  was  the 
command  that  the  earth  should  be  sculptured.  The  sea  was 
not  driven  to  his  place  in  sudden  restrained  rebellion,  but 
withdrawn  to  his  place  in  perfect  and  patient  obedience.  The 
dry  land  appeared,  not  in  level  sands  forsaken  by  the  surges, 
which  those  surges  might  again  claim  for  their  own  ;  but  in 
range  beyond  range  of  swelling  hill  and  iron  rock,  for  ever  to 
c'aini  kindred  with  the  firmament,  and  be  companioned  by  the 
clouds  of  heaven. 

What  space  of  time  was  in  reality  occupied  by  the  "  day" 
of  Genesis,  is  not,  at  present,  of  any  importance  for  us  to 
consider.  By  what  furnaces  of  fire  the  adamant  was  melted, 
and  by  what  wheels  of  earthquake  it  was  torn,  and  by  what 
teeth  of  glacier  and  weight  of  sea-waves  it  was  engraven  and 
finished  into  its  perfect  f'onn,  we  may,  perhaps,  hereafter  en- 
deavor to  conjecture  ;  but  here,  as  in  few  words  the  work  ig 
summed  up  by  the  historian,  so  in  few  broad  thoughts  it 
should  be  comprehended  by  us  ;  and  as  we  read  the  mighty 
sentence,  "Let  the  dry  land  appear,"  we  should  try  to  follow 
the  finger  of  God,  as  it  engraved  upon  the  stone  tables  of  the 
earth  the  letters  and  the  law  of  its  everlasting  form ;  as  gulf 
by  gulf  the  channels  of  the  deep  were  ploughed,  and  cape 
by  cape  the  lines  were  traced,  with  Divine  foreknowledge  of 
the  shores  that  were  to  limit  the  nations ;  and  chain  by  chain 
the  mountain  walls  were  lengthened  forth,  and  their  form- 


TO  NATURE. 

dations  fastened  for  ever ;  and  the  compass  was  set  upon  the 
face  of  the  deep,  and  the  fields  and  the  highest  parts  of  the 
dust  of  the  world  were  made ;  and  the  right  hand  of  Christ 
first  strewed  the  snow  on  the  Lebanon,  and  smoothed  the 
slopes  of  Calvary. 

It  is  not  always  needful,  in  many  respects  it  is  not  possible, 
to  conjecture  the  manner  or  the  time  in  which  this  work  \vas 
done  ;  but  it  is  deeply  necessary  for  all  men  to  consider  the 
magnificence  of  the  accomplished  purpose,  and  the  depth  of 
the  wisdom  and  love  which  are  manifested  hi  the  ordinances 
of  the  hills. 

For,  observe,  in  order  to  bring  the  world  into  the  form 
which  it  now  bears,  it  was  not  mere  sculpture  that  was  needed; 
the  mountains  could  not  stand  for  a  day  unless  they  were 
formed  of  materials  altogether  different  from  those  which 
constitute  the  lower  hills  and  the  surfaces  of  the  valleys.  A 
harder  substance  had  to  be  prepared  for  every  mountain  chain, 
yet  not  so  hard  but  that  it  might  be  capable  of  crumbling 
down  into  earth  fit  to  nourish  the  Alpine  forest  and  the  Alpine 
flower;  not  so  hard  but  that,  in  the  midst  of  the  utmost 
majesty  of  its  enthroned  strength,  there  should  be  seen  on  it 
the  seal  of  death,  and  the  writing  of  the  same  sentence  that 
had  gone  forth  against  the  human  frame,  "  Dust  thou  art,  and 
unto  dust  thou  shalt  return."  And  with  this  perishable  sub- 
stance the  most  majestic  forms  were  to  be  framed  that  were 
consistent  with  the  safety  of  man ;  and  the  peak  was  to  be 
lifted,  and  the  cliff  rent,  as  high  and  as  steeply  as  possible,  in 
order  yet  to  permit  the  shepherd  to  feed  his  flocks  upon  the 
slope,  and  the  cottage  to  nestle  beneath  their  shadow. 

And  observe,  two  distinct  ends  were  to  be  accomplished  in 
the  doing  this.  It  was,  indeed,  absolutely  necessary  that  such 
eminences  should  be  created,  in  order  to  fit  the  earth  in  any 
wise  for  human  habitation ;  for  without  moxin tains  the  air 


MOUNTAINS.  71 

could  not  be  purified,  nor  the  flowing  of  th?  rivers  sustained, 
and  the  earth  must  have  become  for  the  most  part  desert 
plain,  or  stagnant  marsh.  But  the  feeding  of  the  rivers  and 
the  purifying  of  the  winds  are  the  least  of  the  services 
appointed  to  the  hills.  To  fill  the  thirst  of  the  human  heart 
tor  the  beauty  of  God's  working, — to  startle  its  lethargy  with 
the  deep  and  pure  agitation  of  astonishment, — are  their  higher 
missions.  They  are  as  a  great  and  noble  architecture ;  first 
givmg  shelter,  comfort,  and  rest ;  and  covered  also  with 
mighty  sculpture  and  painted  legend.  It  is  impossible  to 
examine  in  their  connected  system  the  features  of  even  the 
most  ordinary  mountain  scenery,  without  concluding  that  it 
has  been  prepared  in  order  to  unite  as  far  as  possible,  and  in 
the  closest  compass,  every  means  of  delighting  and  sanctifying 
the  heart  of  man.  "  As  far  as  possible  ;  "  that  is,  as  far  as  is 
consistent  with  the  fulfilment  of  the  sentence  of  condemnation 
on  the  whole  earth.  Death  must  be  upon  the  hills ;  and  the 
cruelty  of  the  tempest  smite  them,  and  the  briar  and  thorn 
spring  up  upon  them ;  but  they  so  smite,  as  to  bring  their 
rocks  into  the  fairest  forms  ;  and  so  spring,  as  to  make  the  very 
desert  blossom  as  the  rose.  Even  among  our  own  hills  of 
Scotland  and  Cumberland,  though  often  too  barren  to  be  per- 
fectly beautiful,  and  always  too  low  to  be  perfectly  sublime,  it 
is  strange  how  many  deep  sources  of  delight  are  gathered  into 
the  compass  of  their  glens  and  vales ;  and  how,  down  to  the 
most  secret  cluster  of  their  far-away  flowers,  and  the  idlest 
leap  of  their  straying  streamlets,  the  whole  heart  of  Xature 
seems  thirsting  to  give,  and  still  to  give,  shedding  forth  her 
i-verlasting  beneficence  with  a  profusion  so  patient,  so  passion- 
ate, that  our  utmost  observance  and  thankfulness  are  but,  at 
least,  neglect  of  her  nobleness,  and  apathy  to  her  love.  But 
among  the  true  mountains  of  the  greater  orders  the  Divine 
purpose  of  appeal  at  once  to  all  the  faculties  of  the  human 


72  NATURE. 

spirit  becomes  still  more  manifest.  Inferior  hills  ordinarily 
interrupt,  in  some  degree,  the  richness  of  the  valleys  at  their 
feet;  the  grey  downs  of  southern  England,  and  treeless  coteaux 
of  central  France,  and  grey  swells  of  Scottish  moor,  whatever 
peculiar  charm  they  may  possess  in  themselves,  are  at  least 
destitute  of  those  which  belong  to  the  woods  and  fields  of  the 
lowlands.  But  the  great  mountains  lift  the  lowlands  on  their 
sides.  Let  the  reader  imagine,  first,  the  appearance  of  the 
most  varied  plain  of  some  richly  cultivated  country  ;  let  him 
imagine  it  dark  with  graceful  woods,  and  soft  with  deepest 
pastures ;  let  him  fill  the  space  of  it,  to  the  utmost  horizon, 
with  innumerable  and  changeful  incidents  of  scenery  and  life ; 
leading  pleasant  streamlets  through  its  meadows,  strewing 
clusters  of  cottages  beside  their  banks,  tracing  sweet  footpathg 
through  its  avenues,  and  animating  its  fields  with  happy  flocks, 
and  slow  wandering  spots  of  cattle;  and  when  he  has  wearied 
himself  with  endless  imagining,  and  left  no  space  without  some 
loveliness  of  its  own,  let  him  conceive  all  this  great  plain,  with 
its  infinite  treasures  of  natural  beauty  and  happy  human  life, 
gathered  up  in  God's  hand  from  one  end  of  the  horizon  to  the 
other,  like  a  woven  garment;  and  shaken  into  deep  falling 
folds,  as  the  robes  droop  from  a  king's  shoulders;  all  its  bright 
rivers  leaping  into  cataracts  along  the  hollows  of  its  fall,  and 
all  its  forests  rearing  themselves  aslant  against  its  slopes,  as  a 
rider  rears  himself  back  when  his  horse  plunges ;  and  all  its 
villages  nestling  themselves  into  the  new  windings  of  its 
glens;  and  all  its  pastures  thrown  into  steep  waves  of  givcn- 
sward,  dashed  with  dew  along  the  edges  of  their  folds,  and 
sweeping  down  into'endless  slopes,  with  a  cloud  here  and  there 
lying  quietly,  half  on  the  grass,  half  in  the  air  ;  and  he  will 
have  as  yet,  in  all  this  lifted  world,  only  the  foundation  of  one 
of  the  great  Alps. 

They  seem  to  have  been  built  for  the  human  race,  as  at 


MOUNTAINS.  73 

once  their  schools  and  cathedrals:  full  of  treasures  of  illumi- 
nated manuscript  for  the  scholar,  kindly  in  simple  lessons  to 
the  worker,  quiet  in  pale  cloisters  for  the  thinker,  glorious  in 
holiness  for  the  worshipper.  And  of  these  great  cathedrals 
of  the  earth,  with  their  gates  of  rock,  pavements  of  cloud, 
choirs  of  stream  and  stone,  altars  of  snow,  and  vaults  of  purple 
traversed  by  the  continual  stars, — of  these,  as  we  have  seen, 
it  was  written,  nor  long  ago,  by  one  of  the  best  of  the  poor 
human  race  for  whom  it  was  built,  wondering  in  himself  for 
whom  their  Creator  could  have  made  them,  and  thinking  to 
have  entirely  discerned  the  Divine  intent  hi  them — "  They  are 
inhabited  by  the  Beasts." 

Mountains  are,  to  the  rest  of  the  body  of  the  earth,  Avhat, 
violent  muscular  action  is  to  the  body  of  man.  The  muscles 
and  tendons  of  its  anatomy  are,  in  the  mountain,  brought  out 
with  fierce  and  convulsive  energy,  full  of  expression,  passion, 
and  strength ;  the  plains  and  the  lower  hills  are  the  repose 
and  the  effortless  motion  of  the  frame,  when  its  muscles  lie 
dormant  and  concealed  beneath  the  lines  of  its  beauty,  yet 
ruling  those  lines  in  their  every  undulation.  This,  then,  is 
the  first  grand  principle  of  the  truth  of  the  earth.  The  spirit 
of  the  hills  is  action ;  that  of  the  lowlands,  repose ;  and 
between  these  there  is  to  be  found  every  variety  of  motion 
and  of  rest ;  from  the  inactive  plain,  sleeping  like  the  firma- 
ment, with  cities  for  stars,  to  the  fiery  peaks,  which,  with 
heaving  bosoms  and  exulting  limbs,  with  the  clouds  drifting 
like  hair  from  their  bright  foreheads,  lift  up  their  Titan  hands 
to  Heaven,  saying,  "I  live  forever!" 

But  there  is  this  difference  between  the  action  of  the  earth, 
and  that  of  a  living  creature,  that  while  the  exerted  limb 
marks  its  bones  and  tendons  through  the  flesh,  the  excited 
earth  casts  off  the  flesh  altogether,  and  its  bones  come  out 
from  beneath.  Mountains  are  the  bones  of  the  earth,  their 

4 


74  NATURE. 

highest  peaks  are  invariably  those  parts  of  its  anatomy  which 
Lu  the  plains  lie  buried  under  five  and  twenty  thousand  feet 
of  solid  thickness  of  superincumbent  soil,  and  which  spring  up 
in  the  mountain  ranges  in  vast  pyramids  or  wedges,  flinging 
their  garment  of  earth  away  from  them  on  each  side.  The 
masses  of  the  lower  hills  are  laid  over  and  against  their  sides, 
like  the  masses  of  lateral  masonry  against  the  skeleton  arch 
of  an  unfinished  biidge,  except  that  they  slope  up  to  and  lean 
against  the  central  ridge :  and,  finally,  upon  the  slopes  of 
these  lower  hills  are  strewed  the  level  beds  of  sprinkled 
gravel,  sand,  and  clay,  which  form  the  extent  of  the  cham- 
paign. Here  then  is  another  grand  principle  of  the  truth  of 
earth,  that  the  mountains  must  come  from  under  all,  and  be 
the  support  of  all ;  and  that  everything  else  must  be  laid  in 
their  arms,  heap  above  heap,  the  plains  being  the  uppermost. 

Snow  is  modified  by  the  under  forms  of  the  hill  in  some 
sort,  as  dress  is  by  the  anatomy  of  the  human  frame.  And  as 
no  dress  can  be  well' laid  on  without  conceiving  the  l>ody 
beneath,  so  no  Alp  can  be  drawn  unless  its  under  form  is 
conceived  first,  and  its  snow  laid  on  afterwards. 

Every  high  Alp  has  as  much  snow  upon  it  as  it  can  hold  or 
carry.  It  is  not,  observe,  a  mere  coating  of  snow  of  given 
depth  throughout,  but  it  is  snow  loaded  on  until  the  rocks 
can  hold  no  more.  The  surplus  does  not  fall  in  the  winter, 
because,  fastened  by  continual  frost,  the  quantity  of  snow  which 
an  Alp  can  carry  is  greater  than  each  single  winter  can  bestow ; 
it  falls  in  the  first  mild  days  of  spring  in  enormous  avalanches. 
Afterwards  the  melting  continues,  gradually  removing  from 
ah1  the  steep  rocks  the  small  quantity  of  snow  which  was  all 
they  could  hold,  and  leaving  them  black  and  bare  among  the 
accumulated  fields  of  unknown  depth,  which  occupy  the  capa- 
cious valleys  and  less  inclined  superficies  of  the  mountain. 

Hence  it  follows  that  the  deepest  snow  does  not  take  nor 


MOUNTAINS.  75 

indicate  the  actual  forms  of  the  rocks  on  which  it  lies,  but  it 
hangs  from  peak  to  peak  in  unbroken  and  sweeping  festoons, 
or  covers  whole  groups  of  peaks,  which  afford  it  sufficient 
hold,  with  vast  and  unbroken  domes :  these  festoons  and  domes 
being  guided  in  their  curves,  and  modified  in  size,  by  the 
violence  and  prevalent  direction  of  the  winter  winds. 

It  fell  within  the  purpose  of  the  Great  Builder  to  give,  in 
the  highest  peaks  of  mountains,  examples  of  form  more  strange 
and  majestic  than  any  which  could  be  obtained  by  structures 
so  beneficently  adapted  to  the  welfare  of  the  human  race. 
And  the  admission  of  other  modes  of  elevation,  more  terrific 
and  less  secure,  takes  place  exactly  in  proportion  to  the 
increasing  presence  of  such  conditions  in  the  locality  as  shall 
render  it  en  other  grounds  unlikely  to  be  inhabited  or  inca- 
pable of  being  so.  Where  the  soil  is  rich  and  the  climate  soft, 
the  hills  are  low  and  safe ;  as  the  ground  becomes  poorer  and 
the  air  keener,  they  rise  into  forms  of  more  peril  and  pride ; 
and  their  utmost  terror  is  shown  only  where  their  fragments 
fall  on  trackless  ice,  and  the  thunder  of  their  ruin  can  be 
heard  but  by  the  ibex  and  the  eagle.  The  work  of  the  Great 
Spirit  of  nature  is  as  deep  and  unapproachable  in  the  lowest 
as  in  the  noblest  objects,  the  Divine  mind  is  as  visible  in  its 
full  energy  of  operation  on  every  lowly  bank  and  mouldering 
stone,  as  in  the  lifting  of  the  pillars  of  heaven,  and  settling  the 
foundation  of  the  earth ;  and  to  the  rightly  perceiA'ing  mind, 
there  is  the  same  infinity,  the  same  majesty,  the  same  power, 
the  same  unity,  and  the  same  perfection,  manifest  in  the  cast- 
ing of  the  clay  as  in  the  scattering  of  the  cloud,  in  the  moul- 
der ng  of  the  dust  as  in  the  kindling  of  the  day-star. 

It  would  be  as  absurd  to  think  it  an  evil  that  all  the  world 
is  not  fit  for  us  to  inhabit,  as  to  think  it  an  evil  that  the  globe 
is  no  larger  than  it  is.  As  much  as  we  shall  ever  need  is 
evidently  assigned  to  us  for  our  dwelling-place;  the  rest, 


V6  NATURE. 

covered  with  rolling  waves  or  drifting  sands,  fretted  with  ice 
or  crested  with  fire,  is  set  before  us  for  contemplation  in  an 
uninhabitable  magnificence  ;  and  that  part  which  we  are  ena- 
bled to  inhabit  owes  its  fitness  for  human  life  chiefly  to  its 
mountain  ranges,  which,  throwing  the  superfluous  rain  oft'  as  it 
lect  it  hi  streams  or  lakes,  and  guide  it  into  given  places. 


In  some  sense,  a  person  who  has  never  seen  the  rose-color 
of  the  rays  of  dawn  crossing  a  blue  mountain  twelve  or  fifteen 
miles  away,  can  hardly  be  said  to  know  what  tenderness  in 
color  means  at  all;  bright  tenderness  he  may,  indeed,  see  in 
the  sky  or  in  a  flower,  but  this  grave  tenderness  of  the  far- 
away hill-purples  he  cannot  conceive. 

Together  with  this  great  source  of  pre-eminence  in  mass  of 
color,  we  have  to  estimate  the  influence  of  the  finished  inlay- 
ing and  enamel-work  of  the  color-jewellery  on  every  stone  ; 
and  that  of  the  continual  variety  in  species  of  flower  ;  most  of 
the  mountain  flowers  being,  besides,  separately  lovelier  than 
the  lowland  ones.  The  wood  hyacinth  and  wild  rose  are, 
indeed,  the  only  supreme  flowers  that  the  lowlands  can  gene- 
rally show  ;  and  the  wild  rose  is  also  a  mountaineer,  and  more 
fragrant  in  the  hills,  while  the  wood  hyacinth,  or  grape 
hyacinth,  at  its  best  cannot  match  even  the  dark  bell-gentian, 
leaving  the  light-blue  star-gentian  in  its  uncontested  queenli- 
ness,  and  the  Alpine  rose  and  Highland  heather  wholly  with- 
out similitude.  The  violet,  lily  of  the  valley,  crocus,  and 
wood  anemone  are,  I  suppose,  claimable  partly  by  the  plains 
as  well  as  the  hills  ;  but  the  large  orange  lily  and  narcissus  I 
hare  never  seen  but  on  hill  pastures,  and  the  exquisite  oxalis 
IE  pre-eminently  a  mountaineer.* 

*  The  Savoyard's  name  for  its  flower,  "  Pain  du  Bon  Dieu,7"  is  very  beau- 
tiful; from,  I  believe,  the  sujvosed  resemblance  of  its  w.iite  and  scattered 
blr<esom  to  the  fallen  manna. 


MOUNTAINS.  77 

There  are  three  great  offices  which  mountain  ranges  are 
appointed  to  fulfil,  in  order  to  preserve  the  health  and  increase 
the  happiness  of  mankind. 

1.  The  mountains  and  hills  giv*.  motion  to  water,  so  that 
men  can  build  their  cities  in  the  midst  of  fields  which  will 
always  be  fertile,  and  establish  the  lines  of  their  commerce  on 
streams  which  will  not  fail. 

2.  Mountains  maintain  a  constant  change  in  the  currents  of 
the  air.     Mountains  divide  the  earth  not  only  into  districts, 
but  into  climates,  and  cause  perpetual  currents  of  air  to  tra- 
verse their  passes,  and  ascend  or  descend  their  ravines,  alter- 
ing both  the  temperature  and  nature  of  the  air  in  a  thousand 
different  ways,  moistening  it  with  the  spray  of  their  water- 
falls, sucking  it  down  and  beating  it  hither  and  thither  in  the 
pools  of  their  torrents,  closing  it   within   clefts  and  caves, 
where  the  sunbeams  never  reach,  till  it  is  as  cold  as  Novem- 
ber mists,  then  sending  it  forth  again  to  breathe  softly  acros? 
the  slopes  of  velvet  fields,  or  to  be  scorched  among  sunburnt 
shales  and  shapeless  crags,  then  drawing  it  back  in  moaning 
swirls  through  clefts  of  ice,  and  up  into  dewy  wreaths  above 
the  snow-fields ;  then  piercing  it  with  strange  electric  darts 
and  flashes  of  mountain  fire,  and  tossing  it  high  in  fantastic 
storm-cloud  as  the  dried  grass  is  tossed  by  the  mower,  only 
suffering  it  to  depart  at  last,  when  chastened  and  pure,  to 
refresh  the  faded  air  of  the  far-off  plains. 

3.  The  third  great  use  of  mountains  is  to  cause  perpetual 
change  in  the  soils  of  the  earth.     "Without  such  provisions 
the  ground  under  cultivation  would  in  a  series  of  years  become 
exhausted  and   require   to   be  upturned  laboriously   by  the 
hand  of  man.     But  the  elevations  of  the  earth's  surface  pro- 
vide for  it  a  perpetual  renovation.    The  higher  mountains  suf- 
fer their  summits  to  be  broken  into  fragments  and  to  be  cast 
down  in  sheets  of  massy  rock,  full,  as  we  shall  see  presently, 


78  SATUKH. 

of  every  substance  necessary  for  the  nourishment  of  plants  ; 
these  fallen  fragments  are  again  broken  by  frost,  and  ground 
by  torrents,  into  various  conditions  of  sand  and  clay — mate- 
rials which  are  distributed  perpetually  by  the  streams  farther 
and  farther  from  the  mountain's  base.  Every  shower  which 
swells  the  rivulets  enables  their  waters  to  carry  certain  portions 
of  earth  into  new  positions,  and  exposes  new  banks  of  ground 
to  be  mined  in  their  turn.  That  turbid  foaming  of  the  angry 
water, — that  tearing  down  of  bank  and  rock  along  the  flanks  of 
its  fury, — are  no  disturbances  of  the  kind  course  of  nature;  they 
are  beneficent  operations  of  laws  necessary  to  the  existence  of 
man  and  to  the  beauty  of  the  earth.  The  process  is  continued 
more  gently,  but  not  less  effectively,  over  all  the  surface  of 
the  lower  undulating  country ;  and  each  filtering  thread  of 
summer  rain  which  trickles  through  the  short  turf  of  the  up- 
lands is  bearing  its  own  appointed  burden  of  earth  to  be  thrown 
down  on  some  new  natural  garden  in  the  dingles  below. 

And  it  is  not,  in  reality,  a  degrading,  but  a  true,  large,  and 
ennobling  view  of  the  mountain  ranges  of  the  world,  if  we 
compare  them  to  heaps  of  fertile  and  fresh  earth,  laid  up  by  a 
prudent  gardener  beside  his  garden  beds,  whence,  at  inter- 
vals, he  casts  on  them  some  scattering  of  new  and  virgin 
grouad.  That  which  we  so  often  lament  as  convulsion  or 
destruction  is  jaothing  else  than  the  momentary  shaking  oft' the 
dust  from  the  spade.  The  winter  floods,  which  inflict  a  tem- 
porary devastation,  bear  with  them  the  elements  of  succeed 
h  g  fertility;  the  fruitful  field  is  covered  with  sand  and  shingle 
in  momentary  judgment,  but  in  enduring  mercy;  and  tli€ 
great  river,  which  chokes  its  mouth  with  marsh,  and  tosses  ter 
ror  along  its  shore,  is  but  scattering  the  seeds  of  the  harvests 
of  futurity,  and  preparing  the  seats  of  unborn  generations. 

J  have  not  spoken  of  the  local  and  peculiar  utilities  of 
mountains :  I  do  not  count  the  benefit  of  the  supply  of  sum- 


MOUNTAINS.  79 

mer  streams  from  the  moors  of  the  higher  ranges — of  the 
various  medicinal  plants  which  are  nested  among  their  rocks. 
— of  the  delicate  pasturage  which  they  furnish  for  cattle,* — 
of  the  forests  in  which  they  bear  timber  for  shipping — the 
stones  they  supply  for  building,  or  the  ores  of  metal  which 
they  collect  into  spots  open  to  discovery,  and  easy  for  work- 
ing. All  these  benefits  are  of  a  secondary  or  a  limited  nature. 
But  the  three  great  functions  which  I  have  just  described, — 
those  of  giving  motion  and  change  to  water,  air,  and  earth, — 
are  indispensable  to  human  existence  ;  they  are  operations  to 
be  regarded  with  as  full  a  depth  of  gratitude  as  the  laws 
which  bid  the  tree  bear  fruit,  or  the  seed  multiply  itself  in  the 
earth.  And  thus  those  desolate  and  threatening  ranges  of 
dark  mountain,  which,  in  nearly  all  ages  of  the  world,  men 
have  looked  upon  with  aversion  or  with  terror,  and  shrunk 
back  from  as  if  they  were  haunted  by  perpetual  images  of 
death,  are,  in  reality,  sources  of  life  and  happiness  far  fuller 
and  more  beneficent  than  all  the  bright  fruitfulness  of  the 
plain.  The  valleys  only  feed;  the  mountains  feed,  and  guard, 
and  strengthen  us.  We  take  our  idea  of  fearfulness  and  subli- 
mity alternately  from  the  mountains  and  the  sea;  but  we 
associate  them  unjustly.  The  sea  wave,  with  all  its  benefi- 
cence, is  yet  devouring  and  terrible,  but  the  silent  wave  of  the 
blue  mountain  is  lifted  towards  heaven  in  a  stillness  of  per- 
petual mercy ;  and  the  one  surge,  unfathomable  in  its  dark- 
ness, the  other,  unshaken  in  its  faithfulness,  for  ever  bear  the 
seal  of  their  appointed  symbol : 

"  Thy  righteousness  is  like  the  great  mountains : 
Thy  judgments  are  a  great  deep." 

The  higher  mountains  have  their  scenes  of  power  and  vast- 
ness,  their  blue  precipices  and  cloud-like  snows ;  why  should 

*  The  highest  pasturages  (at  least  so  say  the  Savoyards)  being  always  I  he 
beat  and  richest. 


SO  NATURE. 

they  also  have  the  best  and  fairest  colors  given  to  their  fore- 
ground rocks,  and  overburden  the  human  mind  with  woi.der, 
while  the  less  majestic  scenery,  tempting  us  to  the  obscTvam-e 
of  details  for  which  amidst  the  higher  mountains  we  have  no 
admiration  left,  is  yet,  in  the  beauty  of  those  very  details,  as 
inferior  as  it  is  in  scale  of  magnitude  ? 

I  believe  the  answer  must  be,  simply,  that  it  is  not  good 
for  man  to  live  among  what  is  most  beautiful ; — that  ho  is 
a  creature  incapable  of  satisfaction  by  anything  upon  earth ; 
and  that  to  allow  him  habitually  to  possess!,  in  any  kind 
whatsoever,  the  utmost  that  earth  can  give,  is  the  surest  way 
to  cast  him  into  lassitude  or  discontent. 

If  the  most  exquisite  orchestral  music  could  be  continued 
without  a  pause  for  a  series  of  years,  and  children  were 
brought  up  and  educated  in  the  room  in  which  it  were  perpe- 
tually resounding,  I  believe  their  enjoyment  of  music,  or  under- 
standing it,  would  be  very  small.  And  an  accurately  parallel 
effect  seems  to  be  produced  upon  the  powers  of  contempla- 
tion, by  the  redundant  and  ceaseless  loveliness  of  the  high 
mounts  in  districts.  The  faculties  are  paralysed  by  the  abun- 
dance, and  cease,  as  we  before  noticed  of  the  imagination,  to 
be  capable  of  excitement,  except  by  other  subjects  of  intr;v-t 
than  those  which  present  themselves  to  the  eye.  So  that  it 
is,  in  reality,  better  for  mankind  that  the  forms  of  their  com- 
mon landscape  should  offer  no  violent  stimulus  to  the  emotions, 
— that  the  gentle  upland,  browned  by  the  bending  furrows  <>f 
the  plough,  and  the  fresh  sweep  of  the  chalk  down,  and  the 
narrow  winding  of  the  copse-clad  dingle,  should  be  more  fre- 
quent scenes  of  human  life  than  the  Arcadias  of  cloud-capped 
mountain  or  luxuriant  vale  ;  and  that,  while  humbler  (though 
always  infinite)  sources  of  interest  are  given  to  each  of  ua 
around  the  homes  to  which  we  are  restrained  for  the  greater 
part  of  our  lives,  these  mightier  and  stranger  glories  should 


MOUNTAINS.  81 

become  the  objects  of  adventure, — at  once  the  cynosures  cf 
the  fancies  of  childhood,  and  themes  of  tie  happy  memory, 
and  the  winter's  tale  of  age. 

Nor  is  it  always  that  the  inferiority  is  felt.  For,  so  natural 
is  it  to  the  human  heart  to  fix  itself  in  hope  rather  than  in 
present  possession,  and  so  subtle  is  the  charm  which  the  ima- 
gination casts  over  what  is  distant  or  denied,  that  there  is 
often  a  more  touching  power  in  the  scenes  which  contain  far- 
away promise  of  something  greater  than  themselves,  than 
in  those  which  exhaust  the  treasures  and  powers  of  Xature 
in  an  unconquerable  and  excellent  glory,  leaving  nothing 
more  to  be  by  the  fancy  pictured  or  pursued. 

I  do  not  know  that  there  is  a  district  in  the  world  more 
calculated  to  illustrate  this  power  of  the  expectant  imagination, 
than  that  which  surrounds  the  city  of  Fribourg  in  Switzer- 
land, extending  from  it  towards  Berne.  It  is  of  grey  sand- 
stone,  considerably  elevated,  but  presenting  no  object  of 
striking  interest  to  the  passing  traveller ;  so  that,  as  it  is 
generally  seen  in  the  course  of  a  hasty  journey  from  the 
Bernese  Alps  to  those  of  Savoy,  it  is  rarely  regarded  with 
any  other  sensation  than  that  of  weariness,  all  the  more  pain- 
ful because  accompanied  with  reaction  from  the  high  excite- 
ment caused  by  the  splendor  of  the  Bernese  Oberland.  The 
traveller,  footsore,  feverish,  and  satiated  with  glacier  and  pre- 
cipice, lies  back  in  the  corner  of  the  diligence,  perceiving  little 
more  than  that  the  road  is  winding  and  hilly,  and  the  coxmtry 
through  -which  it  passes  cultivated  and  tame.  Let  him,  how- 
ever, only  do  this  tame  country  the  justice  of  staying  in  it  a 
few  days,  until  his  mind  has  recovered  its  tone,  and  taken  one 
or  two  long  walks  through  its  fields,  and  he  will  have  other 
thoughts  of  it.  It  is,  as  I  said,  an  undulating  district  of  grey 
sandstone,  never  attaining  any  considerable  height,  but  having 
enough  of  the  mountaiu  spirit  to  throw  itself  into  .continual 

4* 


82  NATURE. 

succession  of  bold  slope  and  dale;  elevated,  also,  jyst  1'ar 
enough  above  the  sea  to  render  the  pine  a  frequent  forest  tree 
along  its  irregular  ridges.  Through  this  elevated  tract  the 
liver  cuts  its  way  in  a  ravine  some  five  or  six  hundred  feet  in 
depth,  which  winds  for  leagues  between  the  gentle  hills,  un- 
thought  of,  until  its  edge  is  approached ;  and  then  suddenly, 
through  the  boughs  of  the  firs,  the  eye  perceives,  beneath,  the 
green  and  gliding  stream,  and  the  broad  Avails  of  sandstone 
cliff  that  form  its  banks,  hollowed  out  where  the  river  leans 
against  them,  at  its  turns,  into  perilous  overhanging,  and,  on 
the  other  shore,  at  the  same  spots,  leaving  little  breadths  of 
meadow  between  them  and  the  water,  half-overgrown  with 
thicket,  deserted  in  their  sweetness,  inaccessible  from  above, 
and  rarely  visited  by  any  curious  wanderers  along  the  hardly 
traceable  footpath  which  struggles  for  existence  beneath  the 
rocks.  And  there  the  river  ripples,  and  eddies,  and  murmurs 
in  an  utter  solitude.  It  h  passing  through  the  midst  of  a 
thickly  peopled  country ;  but  never  was  a  stream  so  lonely. 
The  feeblest  and  most  far-away  torrent  among  the  high  hills 
has  its  companions :  the  goats  browse  beside  it ;  and  the  tra 
veller  drinks  from  it,  and  passes  over  it  with  his  staff;  and 
the  peasant  traces  a  new  channel  for  it  down  to  his  mill-wheel. 
But  this  stream  has  no  companions  :  it  flows  on  in  an  infinite 
seclusion,  not  secret  or  threatening,  but  a  quietness  of  s  \vci-t 
daylight  and  open  air, — a  broad  space  of  tender  and  deep 
desolateness,  drooped  into  repose  out  of  the  midst  of  human 
labor  and  life ;  the  waves  plashing  lowly,  w5.th  none  to  hear 
th. em ;  and  the  wild  birds  building  in  the  boughs,  with  none 
to  fray  them  away;  and  the  soft  fragrant  herbs  rising,  and 
breathing,  and  fading,  with  no  hand  to  gather  them  ; — and 
yet  all  bright  and  bare  to  the  clouds  above,  and  to  the  lu^h 
fall  of  the  passing  sunshine  and  pure  rain. 
But  above  the  brows  of  those  scarped  cliffs,  all  is  in  an 


MOUNTAINS.  83 

Instant  changed.  A  few  steps  only  beyond  the  firs  that 
stretch  their  branches,  angular,  and  wild,  and  white,  like  forks 
of  lightning,  into  the  air  of  the  ravine,  and  we  are  hi  an  arable 
country  of  the  most  perfect  richness ;  the  swathes  of  its  corn 
glowing  and  burning  from  field  to  field ;  its  pretty  hamlets  all 
vivid  with  fruitful  orchards  and  flowery  gardens,  and  goodly 
with  steep-roofed  storehouse  and  barn;  its  well-kept,  hard, 
park-like  roads  rising  and  falling  from  hillside  to  hillside,  or 
disappearing  among  brown  banks  of  moss,  and  thickets  of 
the  wild  raspberry  and  rose ;  or  gleaming  through  lines  of 
tall  trees,  half  glade,  half  avenue,  where  the  gate  opens,  or 
the  gateless  path  turns  trustedly  aside,  unhindered,  into  the 
garden  of  some  statelier  house,  surrounded  in  rural  pride  with 
its  golden  hives,  and  carved  granaries,  and  irregular  domain 
of  latticed  and  espaliered  cottages,  gladdening  to  look  upon 
in  their  homeliness — delicate,  yet,  hi  some  sort,  rude ;  not 
like  our  English  homes — trim,  laborious,  formal,  irreproach- 
able in  comfort ;  but  with  a  peculiar  carelessness  and  large- 
ness in  all  their  detail,  harmonizing  with  the  outlawed  loveli- 
ness of  their  country.  For  there  is  an  untamed  strength 
even  in  all  that  soft  and  habitable  land.  It  is,  indeed,  gilded 
with  corn  and  fragrant  with  deep  grass,  but  it  is  not  subdued 
to  the  plough  or  to  the  scythe.  It  gives  at  its  own  free  will, 
• — it  seems  to  have  nothing  wrested  from  it  nor  conquered  in 
it.  It,  is  not  redeemed  from  desertness,  but  unrestrained  in 
firuitfulness, — a  generous  land,  bright  with  capricious  plenty, 
and  laughing  from  i*ale  to  vale  in  fitful  fulness,  kind  and  wild  ; 
nor  this  without  some  sterner  element  mingled  in  the  heart  of  it. 
For  along  all  its  ridges  stand  the  dark  masses  of  innumerable 
pines,  taking  no  part  in  its  gladness,  asserting  themselves  for 
ever  as  fixed  shadows,  not  to  be  pierced  or  banished,  even  in 
the  intensest  sunlight;  fallen  flakes  and  fragments  of  the  night, 
stayed  in  their  solemn  squares  in  the  midst  of  all  the  rosy 


84  NATURE. 

bending?  of  the  orchard  boughs,  and  the  yellow  effulgence  of 
the  harvest,  and  tracing  themselves  in  black  network  and 
motionless  fringes  against  the  blanched  blue  of  the  horizon  in 
its  saintly  clearness.  And  yet  they  do  not  sadden  the  land- 
scape, but  seem  to  have  been  set  there  chiefly  to  show  how 
bright  everything  else  is  round  them ;  and  all  the  clouds  look 
of  purer  silver,  and  all  the  air  seems  filled  with  a  whiter  and 
more  living  sunshine,  where  they  are  pierced  by  the  sable 
points  of  the  pines ;  and  all  the  pastures  look  of  more  glowing 
green,  where  they  run  up  between  the  purple  trunks ;  and  the 
sweet  field  footpaths  skirt  the  edges  of  the  forest  for  the  sake 
of  its  shade,  sloping  up  and  down  about  the  slippery  roots, 
and  losing  themselves  every  now  and  then  hopelessly  among 
the  violets,  and  ground  ivy,  and  brown  sheddings  of  the 
fibrous  leaves ;  and,  at  last,  plunging  into  some  open  aisle 
where  the  light  through  the  distant  stems  shows  that  there  is 
a  chance  of  coming  out  again  on  the  other  side  ;  and  coming 
out,  indeed,  in  a  little  while  from  the  scented  darkness,  into 
the  dazzling  air  and  marvellous  landscape,  that  stretches  slill 
farther  and  farther  in  new  wilfulnesses  of  grove  and  garden, 
until,  at  last,  the  craggy  mountains  of  the  Simmenthal  rise 
out  of  L,  sharp  into  the  rolling  of  the  southern  clouds. 

Close  beside  the  path  by  which  travellers  ascend  the  Mon- 
tanvert  from  the  valley  of  Chaiuouni,  on  the  right  hand,  where 
it  first  begins  to  rise  among  the  pines,  there  descends  a  sin  ill 
stream  from  the, foot  of  the  granite  peak  known  to  the  guides 
as  the  Aiguille  Charmoz.  It  is  concealed  from  the  traveller 
by  a  thicket  of  alder,  and  its  murmur  is  hardly  heard,  for  it  ia 
one  of  the  weakest  streams  of  the  valley.  But  it  is  a  constant 
stream ;  fed  by  a  permanent  though  small  glacier,  an  1  con- 
tinuing to  flow  even  to  the  close  of  the  summer,  when  more 
copious  torrents,  depending  on  the  melting  of  the  lower 
snows,  have  left  their  beds  "  stony  channels  in  the  sun." 


MOUNTAINS.  85 

I  suppose  that  my  readers  must  be  generally  aware  that, 
glaciers  are  masses  of  ice  in  slow  motion,  at  the  rate  of  from 
ten  to  twenty  inches  a  day,  and  that  the  stones  which  are 
caught  between  them  and  the  rocks  over  which  they  pass,  or 
which  are  embedded  in  the  ice  and  dragged  along  by  it  over 
those  rocks,  are  of  course  subjected  to  a  crushing  and  grind- 
ing power  altogether  unparalleled  by  any  other  force  in 
constant  action.  The  dust  to  which  these  stones  are  reduced 
by  the  friction  is  carried  down  by  the  streams  which  flow 
from  the  melting  glacier,  so  that  the  water  which  in  the  morn- 
ing may  be  pure,  owing  what  little  strength  it  has  chiefly  to 
the  rock  springs,  is  in  the  afternoon  not  only  increase'!  in 
volume,  but  whitened  with  dissolved  dust  of  granite,  in  pro- 
portion to  the  heat  of  the  preceding  hours  of  the  day,  and  to 
the  power  and  size  of  the  glacier  which  feeds  it. 

The  long  drought  which  took  place  in  the  autumn  of  the 
year  1854,  sealing  every  source  of  waters  except  these  per- 
petual ones,  left  the  torrent  of  which  I  am  speaking,  and  such 
others,  in  a  state  peculiarly  favorable  to  observance  of  their 
least  action  on  the  mountains  from  which  they  descend.  They 
were  entirely  limited  to  their  own  ice  fountains,  and  the 
quantity  of  powdered  rock  which  they  brought  down  was,  of 
course,  at  its  minimum,  being  nearly  unmingled  with  any 
earth  derived  from  the  dissolution  of  softer  soil,  or  vegetable 
mould,  by  rains. 

At  three  in  the  afternoon,  on  a  warm  day  in  September, 
when  the  torrent  had  reached  its  average  maximum  strength 
for  the  day,  I  filled  an  ordinary  Bordeaux  wine-flask  with  the 
water  where  it  was  least  turbid.  From  this  quart  of  water  1 
obtained  twenty-four  grains  of  sand  and  sediment,  more  or 
loss  fine.  I  cannot  estimate  the  quantity  of  water  in  the 
stream ;  but  the  runlet  of  it  at  which  I  filled  the  flask  was 
giving  about  two  hundred  bottles  a  minute,  or  rather  more, 


86  NATURE. 

carrying  down  therefore  about  three  quarters  of  a  pound  of 
powdered  granite  every  minute.  This  would  be  forty-five 
pounds  an  hour ;  but  allowing  for  the  inferior  power  of  the 
stream  in  the  cooler  periods  of  the  day,  and  taking  into  con- 
sideration, on  the  other  side,  its  increased  power  in  rain,  we 
may,  I  think,  estimate  its  average  hour's  work  at  twenty 
eight  01  thirty  pounds,  or  a  hundred-weight  every  four  hours. 
By  this  insignificant  runlet,  therefore,  some  four  inches  wide 
and  four  inches  deep,  rather  more  than  two  tons  of  the  sub- 
Btauce  of  Mont  Blanc  are  displaced,  and  carried  down  a  cer- 
tain distance  every  week ;  and  as  it  is  only  for  three  or  four 
months  that  the  flow  of  the  stream  is  checked  by  frost,  we 
may  certainly  allow  eighty  tons  for  the  mass  which  it  annually 
moves. 

It  is  not  worth  while  to  enter  into  any  calculation  of  the 
relation  borne  by  this  runlet  to  the  great  torrents  which 
descend  from  the  chain  of  Mont  Blanc  into  the  valley  of  Cha- 
mouni.  To  call  it  the  thousandth  part  of  the  glacier  waters, 
would  give  a  ludicrous  under-estimate  of  their  total  power ; 
but  even  so  calling  it,  we  should  find  for  result  that  eighty 
thousand  tons  of  mountain  must  be  yearly  transformed  into 
drifted  sand,  and  carried  down  a  certain  distance.*  How 
much  greater  than  this  is  the  actual  quantity  so  transformed 
I  cannot  tell ;  but  take  this  quantity  as  certain,  and  consider 
that  this  represents  merely  the  results  of  the  labor  of  the  con- 
stant summer  streams,  utterly  irrespective  of  all  sudden  f;illa 
of  stones  and  of  masses  of  mountain  (a  single  thunderbolt  will 
sometimes  leave  a  scar  on  the  flank  of  a  soft  rock,  looking  like 
a  trench  for  a  railroad) ;  and  we  shall  then  begin  to  appro- 

*  How  far,  is  another  question.  The  sand  which  the  stream  brings  front 
the  bottom  of  one  eddy  in  its  course,  it  throws  down  in  the  next:  all  that  is 
proved  by  the  above  trial  is,  that  so  many  tons  of  material  are  annually  car- 
ried d}\vn  by  it  a,  certain  number  ol'fcet. 


MOUNTAINS.  87 

bond  something  ot  the  operation  of  the  great  laws  of  change, 
which  are  the  conditions  of  all  material  existence,  however 
apparently  enduring.  The  hills,  Avhich,  as  compared  with 
li\  ing  beings,  seem  "  everlasting,"  are,  in  truth,  as  perishing 
as  they:  its  veins  of  flowing  fountain  weary  the  mountain 
heart,  as  the  crimson  pulse  does  ours ;  the  natural  force  of  the 
iron  crag  is  abated  in  its  appointed  time,  like  the  strength  of 
the  sinews  in  a  human  old  age  ;  and  it  is  but  the  lapse  of  tho 
longer  years  of  decay  which,  in  the  sight  of  its  Creator,  dis- 
tinguishes the  mountain  range  from  the  moth  and  the  worm. 

And  hence  two  questions  arise  of  the  deepest  interest. 
From  what  first  created  forms  were  the  mountains  brought 
into  their  present  condition  ?  into  what  forms  will  they 
change  in  the  course  of  ages  ?  Was  the  world  anciently  in  a 
more  or  less  perfect  state  than  it  is  now  ?  was  it  less  or  more 
fitted  for  the  habitation  of  the  human  race?  and  are  the 
changes  which  it  is  now  undergoing  favorable  to  that  race  or 
not?  The  present  conformation  of  the  earth  appears  dictated, 
as  has  been  shown  in  the  preceding  chapters,  by  supreme 
wisdom  and  kindness.  And  yet  its  former  state  must  have 
been  different  from  what  it  is  now ;  as  its  present  one  from 
that  which  it  must  assume  hereafter.  Is  this,  therefore,  the 
eai*th's  prime  into  which  we  are  born ;  or  is  it,  with  all  its 
beauty,  only  the  wreck  of  Paradise? 

I  cannot  entangle  the  reader  in  the  intricacy  of  the  inquiries 
necessary  for  anything  like  a  satisfactory  solution  of  these 
questions.  But,  were  he  to  engage  in  such  inquiries,  their 
result  would  be  his  strong  conviction  of  the  earth's  having 
been  brought  from  a  state  in  which  it  was  utterly  uninhabit 
able  into  one  fitted  for  man ;  of  its  having  been,  when  iirst 
inhabitable,  more  beautiful  than  it  is  now ;  and  of  its  gradually 
tt'iiding  to  still  greater  inferiority  of  aspect,  and  untitness  for 
abode. 


It  has  indeed  been  the  endeavor  of  some  geologists  to  prove 
that  destruction  and  renovation  are  continually  proceeding 
simultaneously  in  mountains  as  well  as  hi  organic  creatures; 
that  while  existing  eminences  are  being  slowly  lowered,  others, 
in  order  to  supply  their  place,  are  being  slowly  elevated  ;  and 
that  what  is  lost  in  beauty  or  healthiness  in  one  spot  is  gained 
in  another.  But  I  cannot  assent  to  such  a  conclusion.  Evi- 
dence altogether  incontrovertible  points  to  a  state  of  the  earth 
in  which  it  could  be  tenanted  only  by  lower  animals,  fitted 
for  the  circumstances  under  which  they  lived  by  peculiar 
organizations.  From  this  state  it  is  admitted  gradually  to 
have  been  brought  into  that  in  which  we  now  see  it ;  and  the 
circumstances  of  the  existing  dispensation,  whatever  may  be 
the  date  of  its  endurance,  seem  to  me  to  point  not  less  clearly 
to  an  end  than  to  an  origin  ;  to  a  creation,  when  "  the  earth 
was  without  form  and  void,"  and  to  a  close,  when  it  must 
either  be  renovated  or  destroyed. 

In  one  sense,  and  in  one  only,  the  idea  of  a  continuous 
order  of  things  is  admissible,  in  so  far  as  the  phenomena  which 
introduced,  and  those  which  are  to  terminate,  the  existing  dis- 
pensation, may  have  been,  and  may  in  future  be,  nothing  more 
than  a  gigantic  development  of  agencies  which  are  in  con 
tinual  operation  around  us.  The  experience  we  possess  of 
volcanic  agency  is  not  yet  large  enough  to  enable  us  to  set 
limits  to  its  force ;  and  as  we  see  the  rarity  of  subterraneous 
action  generally  proportioned  to  its  violence,  there  may  be 
appointed,  in  the  natural  order  of  things,  convulsions  to  take 
place  after  certain  epochs,  on  a  scale  which  the  human  race 
has  not  yet  lived  long  enough  to  witness.  The  soft  silver 
floud  uhich  writhes  innocently  on  the  crest  of  Vesuvius,  rests 
there  without  intermission  ;  but  the  fury  which  lays  cities  in 
sepulchres  of  lava  bursts  forth  only  after  intervals  of  centuries ; 
and  the  still  fiercer  indignation  of  the  greater  volcanoes. 


MOUNTAINS.  89 

•which  makes  half  the  globe  vibrate  with  earth  make,  and 
shrivels  up  whole  kingdoms  with  flame,  is  recorded  only  in 
dim  distances  of  history :  so  that  it  is  not  irrational  to  admit 
that  there  may  yet  be  powers  dormant,  not  destroyed,  beneath 
the  apparently  calm  surface  of  the  earth,  whose  date  of  rest  is 
the  endurance  of  the  human  race,  and  whose  date  of  action 
must  be  that  of  its  doom.  But  whether  such  colossal  agencies 
are  indeed  in  the  existing  order  of  things  or  not,  still  the 
effective  truth,  for  us,  is  one  and  the  same.  The  earth,  as  a 
tormented  and  trembling  ball,  may  have  rolled  in  space  for 
myriads  of  ages  before  humanity  was  formed  from  its  dust ; 
and  as  a  devastated  ruin  it  may  continue  to  roll,  when  all  that 
dust  shall  again  have  been  mingled  with  ashes  that  never 
were  warmed  by  life,  or  polluted  by  sin.  But  for  us  the  intel- 
ligible and  substantial  lact  is  that  the  earth  has  been  brought, 
by  forces  we  know  not  of,  into  a  form  fitted  for  our  habitation: 
on  that  form  a  gradual  but  destructive  change  is  continually 
taking  place,  and  the  course  of  that  change  points  clearly  to  a 
period  when  it  will  no  more  be  fitted  for  the  dwelling-place 
of  men. 

It  is,  therefore,  not  so  much  what  these  forms  of  the  earth 
actually  are,  as  what  they  are  continually  becoming,  that  we 
have  to  observe  ;  nor  is  it  possible  thus  to  observe  them  with- 
out an  instinctive  reference  to  the  first  state  out  of  which  they 
have  been  brought.  The  existing  torrent  has  dug  its  bed  a 
thousand  feet  deep.  But  in  what  form  was  the  mountain  ori- 
ginally raised  which  gave  that  torrent  its  track  and  power  ? 
The  existing  precipice  is  wrought  into  towers  and  bastions  by 
the  perpetual  fall  of  its  fragments.  In  what  form  did  it  stand 
before  a  single  fragment  fell  ? 

Yet  to  such  questions,  continually  suggesting  themselves,  it 
is  never  possible  to  give  a  complete  answer.  For  a  certain 
distance,  the  past  work  of  existing  forces  can  be  traced ;  but 


90  NATURE. 

there  gradually  the  mist  gathers,  and  the  footsteps  of  more 
gigantic  agencies  are  traceable  in  the  darkn-ss;  and  still,  ae 
\ve  endeavor  to  penetrate  farther  and  farther  into  departed 
time,  the  thunder  of  the  Almighty  power  sounds  louder  and 
louder  ;  and  the  clouds  gather  broader  and  more  fearfully 
until  at  last  the  Sinai  of  the  world  is  seen  altogether  upon  a 
emoke.  and  the  fence  of  its  foot  is  reached,  which  none  can 
break  through. 

If,  therefore,  we  venture  to  advance  towards  the  spot  where 
the  cloud  first  comes  down,  it  is  rather  with  the  purpose  of 
fully  pointing  out  that  there  is  a  cloud,  than  of  entering  into 
it.  It  is  well  to  have  been  fully  convinced  of  the  existence  of 
the  mystery,  in  an  age  far  too  apt  to  suppose  that  everything 
Avhich  is  visible  is  explicable,  and  everything  that  is  present, 
eternal. 

In  the  actual  form  of  any  mountain  peak,  there  must 
usually  be  traceable  the  shadow  or  skeleton  of  its  former  self; 
like  the  obscure  indications  of  the  first  frame  of  a  war-worn 
tower,  preserved,  in  some  places,  under  the  heap  of  its  ruins, 
in  others  to  be  restored  in  imagination  from  the  thin  remnants 
of  its  tottering  shell ;  while  here  an  1  there,  in  some  sheltered 
spot,  a  few  unfallen  stones  Detain  their  Gothic  sculpture,  and 
a  few  touches  of  the  chisel,  or  stains  of  color,  inform  us  of 
the  whole  mind  and  perfect  skill  of  the  old  designer.  AVith 
this  great  difference,  nevertheless,  that  in  the  human  architec- 
ture the  builder  did  not  calculate  upon  ruin,  nor  appoint  the 
course  of  impendent  desolation  ;  but  that  in  the  hand  of  the 
great  Architect  of  the  mountains,  time  and  decay  are  as  much 
the  instruments  of  His  purpose  as  the  forces  by  which  lie  first 
led  forth  the  troops  of  hills  in  leaping  flocks: — the  lightning 
and  the  torrent,  and  the  wasting  and  weariness  of  innume- 
rable ages,  all  bear  their  part  in  the  working  out  of  one  con- 
sistent plan;  and  the  Builder  of  the  temple  for  ever  stands 


MOUNTAINS.  91 

beside  His  work,  appointing  the  stone  that  is  to  fall,  and  the 
pillar  that  is  to  be  abased,  and  guiding  all  the  seeming  wild 
ness  of  ehauce  and  change,  into  ordained  splendors  and  fore- 
seen harmonies. 

I  believe,  for  general  development  of  human  intelligence 
and  sensibilii/y,  country  of  this  kind  is  about  the  most  perfect 
that  exists.  A  richer  landscape,  as  that  of  Italy,  enervates,  or 
causes  wantonness ;  a  poorer  contracts  the  conceptions,  and 
hardens  the  temperament  of  both  mind  and  body ;  and  one 
more  curiously  or  prominently  beautiful  deadens  the  sense  of 
beauty.  Even  what  is  here  of  attractiveness, — far  exceeding, 
as  it  does,  that  of  most  of  the  thickly  peopled  districts  of  the 
temperate  zone, — seems  to  act  harmfully  on  the  poetical 
character  of  the  Swiss ;  but  take  its  inhabitants  all  in  all,  aa 
with  deep  love  and  stern  penetration  they  are  painted  in  the 
works  of  their  principal  writer,  Gotthelf,  and  I  believe  we 
shall  not  easily  find  a  peasantry  which  would  completely  sus- 
tain comparison  with  them. 

To  myself,  mountains  are  the  beginning  and  the  end  of  all 
natural  scenery ;  in  them,  and  in  the  forms  of  inferior  land- 
scape that  lead  to  them,  my  affections  are  wholly  bound  up ; 
and  though  I  can  look  with  happy  admiration  at  the  lowland 
flowers,  and  woods,  and  open  skies,  the  happiness  is  tranquil 
and  cold,  like  that  of  examining  detached  flowers  in  a  conser- 
vatory, or  reading  a  pleasant  book;  and  if  the  scenery  be 
resolutely  level,  insisting  upon  the  declaration  of  its  own  flat- 
ness in  all  the  detail  of  it,  as  in  Holland,  or  Lincolnshire,  or 
Central  Lombardy,  it  appears  to  me  like  a  prison,  and  I 
cannot  long  endure  it.  But  the  slightest  rise  and  fall  in  the 
road, — a  mossy  bank  at  the  side  of  a  crag  of  chalk,  with 
brambles  at  its  brow,  overhanging  it, — a  ripple  over  three  or 
(bur  stones  in  the  stream  b}  the  bridge, — above  all,  a  wild  bit 


92  NATURE. 

oi  ferny  ground  under  a  fir  or  two,  looking  as  if,  possibly,  one 
might  see  a  hill  if  one  got  to  the  other  side  of  the  trees,  will 
instantly  give  me  intense  delight,  because  the  shadow,  or  the 
hope,  of  the  hills  is  in  them. 

And,  in  fact,  much  of  the  apparently  harmful  influence  of 
hills  on  the  religion  of  the  world  is  nothing  else  than  their 
general  gift  of  exciting  the  poetical  and  inventive  faculties,  in 
peculiarly  solemn  tones  of  mind.  Their  terror  leads  into 
devotional  casts  of  thought;  their  beauty  and  \vildncss  prompt 
the  invention  at  the  same  time ;  and  where  the  mind  is  not 
gifted  with  stern  reasoning  powers,  or  protected  by  purity  of 
teaching,  it  is  sure  to  mingle  the  invention  with  its  creed,  and 
the  vision  with  its  prayer.  Sti'ictly  speaking,  we  ought  to 
consider  the  superstitions  of  the  hills,  universally,  as  a  form  of 
poetry ;  regretting  only  that  men  have  not  yet  learned  how 
to  distinguish  poetry  from  well-founded  faith. 

It  has  always  appeared  to  me  that  there  was,  even  in 
healthy  mountain  districts,  a  certain  degree  of  inevitable 
melancholy;  nor  could  I  ever  escape  from  the  feeling  that 
here,  where  chiefly  the  beauty  of  God's  working  was  mani- 
fested to  men,  warning  was  also  given,  and  that  to  the  full,  of 
the  enduring  of  His  indignation  against  sin. 

It  seems  one  of  the  most  cunning  and  frequent  of  self- 
deceptions  to  turn  the  heart  away  from  this  warning  and 
refuse  to  acknowledge  anything  in  the  fair  scenes  of  the 
natural  creation  but  beneficence.  Men  in  general  lean  to- 
wards the  light,  so  far  as  they  contemplate  such  things  at  all, 
most  of  them  passing  "by  on  the  other  side,"  either  in  mere 
plodding  pursuit  of  their  own  work,  irrespective  of  what 
good  or  evil  is  around  them,  or  else  in  selfish  gloom,  or  selfish 
delight,  resulting  from  their  own  circumstances  at  the  mo- 
ment. Of  those  who  give  themselves  to  any  true  contem- 


MOUNTAINS.  93 

plation,  the  plurality,  being  humble,  gentle,  and  kindly- 
hearted,  look  only  in  nature  for  what  is  lovely  anJ  kind ; 
partly,  also,  God  gives  the  disposition  to  every  healthy  human 
mind  in  some  degree  to  pass  over  or  even  harden  itself  against 
evil  tilings,  else  the  suffering  would  be  too  great  to  be  borne; 
and  humble  people,  with  a  quiet  trust  that  everything  is  for 
the  best,  do  not  fairly  represent  the  facts  to  themselves,  think- 
ing them  none  of  their  business.  So,  what  between  hard- 
hearted people,  thoughtless  people,  busy  people,  humble 
people,  and  cheerfully-minded  people, — giddiness  of  youth, 
and  pre-occupations  of  age, — philosophies  of  faith,  and  cru- 
elties of  folly, — priest  and  Levite,  masquer  and  merchantman, 
all  agreeing  to  keep  their  own  side  of  the  way, — the  evil  that 
God  sends  to  warn  us  gets  to  be  forgotten,  and  the  evil  that 
He  sends  to  be  mended  by  us  gets  left  unmended.  And  then, 
because  people  shut  their  eyes  to  the  dark  indisputableness  of 
the  facts  in  front  of  them,  their  Faith,  such  as  it  is,  is  shaken 
or  uprooted  by  every  darkness  in  what  is  revealed  to  them. 
In  the  present  day  it  is  not  easy  to  find  a  well-meaning  man 
among  our  more  earnest  thinkers,  who  will  not  take  upon 
himself  to  dispute  the  whole  system  of  redemption,  because 
he  cannot  unravel  the  mystery  of  the  punishment  of  sin.  But 
can  he  unravel  the  mystery  of  the  punishment  of  NO  sin  ? 
Can  he  entirely  account  for  all  that  happens  to  a  cab-horse  ? 
Has  he  ever  looked  foirly  at  the  fate  of  one  of  those  beasts  as 
it  is  dying, — measured  the  work  it  has  done,  and  the  reward 
it  has  got,  put  his  hand  upon  the  bloody  wounds  through 
tthich  its  bones  are  piercing,  and  so  looked  up  to  Heaven 
with  an  entire  understanding  of  Heaven's  ways  about  the 
horso !  Yet  the  horse  is  a  fact — no  dream — no  revelation 
among  the  myrtlo  trees  by  night ;  and  the  dust  it  dies  upon, 
and  the  dogs  that  eat  it,  are  facts ;  and  yonder  nanpy  person, 
whose  the  horse  was  it  till  its  knees  were  broken  over  the 


94  NATURK. 

hurd'es,  who  had  an  immortal  soul  to  begin  with,  and  wealth 
and  peace  to  help  forward  his  immortality  ;  who  has  also 
devoted  the  powers  of  his  soul,  and  body,  and  wealth,  and 
peace,  to  the  spoiling  of  houses,  the  corruption  of  the  innocent, 
»nd  the  oppression  of  the  poor  ;  and  has,  at  this  actual 
moment  of  his  prosperous  life,  as  many  curses  waiting  round 
about  him  in  calm  shadow,  with  their  death's  eyes  fixed  upon 
him,  biding  their  time,  as  ever  the  poor  cab-horse  had  launched 
at  him  in  meaningless  blasphemies,  when  his  failing  feet  stum- 
bled at  the  stones, — this  happy  person  shall  have  no  stripes, — • 
shall  have  only  the  horse's  fate  of  annihilation  ;  or,  if  other 
things  are  indeed  reserved  for  him,  Heaven's  kindness  or 
omnipotence  is  to  be  doubted  therefore. 

We  cannot  reason  of  these  things.  But  this  I  know — and 
this  may  by  all  men  be  known — that  no  good  or  lovely  thing 
exists  in  this  world  without  its  correspondent  darkness ;  and 
that  the  universe  presents  itself  continually  to  mankind  under 
the  stern  aspect  of  warning,  or  of  choice,  the  good  and  the 
evil  set  on  the  right  hand  and  the  left. 

And  in  this  mountain  gloom,  which  weighs  so  strongly  upon 
the  human  heart  that  in  all  time  hitherto,  as  we  have  seen,  the 
hill  defiles  have  been  either  avoided  in  terror  or  inhabited  in 
penance,  there  is  but  the  fulfilment  of  the  universal  law,  that 
where  the  beauty  and  wisdom  of  the  Divine  working  are  most 
manifested,  there  also  are  manifested  most  clearly  the  terror 
of  God's  wrath,  and  inevitableness  of  His  power. 

Nor  is  this  gloom  less  wonderful  so  far  as  it  bears  witness 
to  the  error  of  human  choice,  even  when  the  nature  of  good 
and  evil  is  most  definitely  set  before  it.  The  trees  of  Paradise 
were  fair  ;  but  our  first  parents  hid  themselves  from  God  "  in 
medio  ligni  Paradisi," — in  the  midst  of  the  trees  of  the  gar 
den.  The  hills  were  ordained  for  the  help  of  man  ;  but, 
instead  of  raising  his  eyes  to  the  hills,  from  whence  cometh 


MOUNTAINS.  95 

his  help,  he  does  his  idol  sacrifice  "  upon  every  high  hill  and 
under  every  green  tree."  The  mountain  of  the  Lord's  house 
is  established  above  the  hills ;  but  Xadab  and  Abihu  shall  see 
under  His  feet  the  body  of  heaven  in  his  clearness,  yet  go 
down  to  kindle  the  censer  against  their  o\vn  souls.  And  so 
to  the  end  of  time  it  will  be ;  to  the  end,  that  cry  will  still  be 
heard  along  the  Alpine  winds,  "  Hear,  oh  ye  mountains,  the 
Lord's  controversy !"  Still,  their  gulfs  of  thawless  ice,  and 
unretarded  roar  of  tormented  waves,  and  deathful  falls  of 
fruitless  waste  and  unredeemed  decay,  must  be  the  image  of 
the  souls  of  those  who  have  chosen  the  darkness,  and  whose 
cry  shall  be  to  the  mountains  to  fall  on  them,  and  to  the  hills 
to  cover  them ;  and  still,  to  the  end  of  time,  the  clear  waters 
of  the  unfailing  springs,  and  the  white  pasture-lilies  in  then 
clothed  multitude,  and  the  abiding  of  the  burning  peaks  in 
their  nearness  to  the  opened  heaven,  shall  be  the  types,  a  ad 
the  blessings,  of  those  who  have  chosen  light,  and  of  whom  it 
is  written,  "The  mountains  shall  bring  peace  to  the  people, 
and  the  little  hills,  righteousness." 

How  were  the  gigantic  fields  of  shattered  marble  conveyed 
from  the  ledges  which  were  to  remain  exposed  ?  No  signs  of 
violence  are  found  on  these  ledges  ;  what  marks  there  are,  the 
rain  and  natural  decay  have  softly  traced  through  a  long  series 
of  years.  Those  very  time-marks  may  have  indeed  effaced 
mere  superficial  appearances  of  convulsion;  but  could  they 
have  elfaced  all  evidence  of  the  action  of  such  floods  as  would 
have  been  necessary  to  carry  bodily  away  the  whole  ruin  of  a 
block  of  marble  leagues  in  length  and  breadth,  and  a  quarter 
of  a  mile  thick  ?  Ponder  over  the  intense  marvellousness  of 
this. 

And  yet  no  trace  of  the  means  by  which  all  this  was  effected 
is  left.  The  reck  stands  forth  in  its  white  and  rugged  mys- 
tery, as  if  its  peak  had  he<  ~  born  out  of  the  blue  sky.  The 


96  NATUKB. 

strength  that  raised  it,  and  the  sea  that  wrought  upon  it,  have 
passed  away,  and  left  no  sign  ;  and  we  have  no  words  wherein  to 
describe  their  departure,  no  thoughts  to  form  about  tneir  action, 
than  those  of  the  perpetual  and  unsatisfied  interrogation, — 

"  What  ailed  thee,  O  thou  sea,  that  thou  fleddest  ? 

And  ye  mountains,  that  ye  skipped  like  lambs  ?" 

As  we  pass  beneath  the  hills  which  have  been  shaken  by 
earthquake  and  torn  by  convulsion,  we  find  that,  periods  of 
perfect  repose  succeeded  those  of  destruction.  The  pools  of 
calm  water  lie  clear  beneath  their  fallen  rocks,  the  water- 
lilies  gleam,  and  the  reeds  whisper  among  their  shadows ;  the 
village  rises  again  over  the  forgotten  graves,  and  its  church- 
tower,  white  through  the  storm-twilight,  proclaims  a  renewed 
appeal  to  His  protection  in  whose  hand  "  are  all  the  corners 
of  the  earth,  and  the  strength  of  the  hills  is  His  also."  There 
is  no  loveliness  of  Alpine  valley  that  does  not  teach  the  same 
lesson.  It  is  just  where  "the  mountain  falling  cometh  to 
naught,  and  the  rock  is  removed  out  of  his  place,"  that,  in 
process  of  years,  the  fairest  meadows  bloom  between  the  frag- 
ments, the  clearest  rivulets  murmur  from  their  crevices  among 
the  flowers,  and  the  clustered  cottages,  each  sheltered  beneath 
some  strength  of  mossy  stone,  now  to  be  removed  no  more, 
and  with  their  pastured  flocks  around  them,  safe  from  the 
eagle's  stoop  and  the  wolf's  ravin,  have  written  upon  tlu-ir 
fronts,  in  simple  words,  the  mountaineer's  faith  in  the  ancient 
promise — 

"Neither  shalt  thou  be  afraid  of  destruction  when  it  corr.eth ; 

*;  For  thou  shalt  be  in  league  with  the  Stones  of  the  Field ; 
ai;d  the  beasts  of  the  field  shall  be  at  peace  with  thee." 

The  idea  of  retirement  from  the  world  for  the  sake  of  self- 
mortification,  of  combat  with  demons,  or  communion  with 


MOUNTAINS.  97 

angels,  and  with  their  king, — authoritatively  commended  as  it 
was  to  all  men  by  the  continual  practice  of  Christ  Himself, — 
gave  to  all  mountain  solitude  at  once  a  sanctity  and  a  terror, 
in  the  mediaeval  mind,  which  were  altogether  different  from 
anything  that  it  had  possessed  in  the  un-Christian  periods. 
On  the  one  side,  there  was  an  idea  of  sanctity  attached  to 
rocky  wilderness,  because  it  had  always  been  among  hills  that 
the  Deity  had  manifested  himself  most  intimately  to  men,  and 
to  the  hills  that  His  saints  had  nearly  always  retired  for  medi- 
tation, for  especial  communion  with  Him,  and  to  prepare  for 
death.  Men  acquainted  with  the  history  of  Moses,  alone  at 
Horeb,  or  with  Israel  at  Sinai, — of  Elijah  by  the  brook  Cherith, 
and  in  the  Horeb  cave ;  of  the  deaths  of  Moses  and  Aaron  on 
Hor  and  Xebo;  of  the  preparation  of  Jephthah's  daughter  for 
her  death  among  the  Judea  Mountains;  of  the  continual 
retirement  of  Christ  himself  to  the  mountains  for  prayer,  His 
temptation  in  the  desert  of  the  Dead  Sea,  His  sermon  on  the 
hills  of  Capernaum,  His  transfiguration  on  the  crest  of  Tabor, 
and  his  evening  and  morning  walks  over  Olivet  for  the  four 
or  five  days  preceding  His  crucifixion, — were  not  likely  to 
look  with  irreverent  or  unloving  eyes  upon  the  blue  hills 
that  girded  their  golden  horizon,  or  drew  upon  them  the 
mysterious  clouds  out  of  the  height  of  the  darker  heaven. 
But  with  this  impression  of  their  greater  sanctity  was  involved 
also  that  of  a  peculiar  terror.  In  all  this, — their  haunting  by 
the  memories  of  prophets,  the  presences  of  angels,  and  the 
everlasting  thoughts  and  words  of  the  Redeemer, — the  moun- 
tain ranges  seemed  separated  from  the  active  world,  and  only 
to  be  fitly  approached  by  hearts  which  were  condemnatory  of 
it.  Just  in  so  much  as  it  appeared  necessary  for  the  noblest 
men  to  retire  to  the  hill-recesses  before  their  missions  could 
be  accomplished  or  their  spirits  perfected,  in  so  far  did  the 
daily  world  seem  by  comparison  to  be  pronounced  profane 


98  NATURE. 

and  dangorous;  and  to  those  who  loved  that  world,  and  its 
work,  the  mountains  were  thus  voiceful  with  perpetual 
rebuke,  and  necessarily  contemplated  with  a  kind  of  pain  and 
fear,  such  as  a  man  engrossed  by  vanity,  feels  at  being  by 
some  accident  forced  to  hear  a  startling  sermon,  or  to  assist 
at  a  funeral  service.  Every  association  of  this  kind  \va* 
deepened  by  the  practice  and  precept  of  the  time;  aiul 
thousands  of  hearts,  which  might  otherwise  have  felt  that 
there  was  loveliness  in  the  wild  landscape,  shrank  from  it  in 
dread,  because  they  knew  the  monk  retired  to  it  for  penance, 
and  the  hermit  for  contemplation. 

Mark  the  significance  of  the  earliest  mention  of  mountain  a 
in  the  Mosaic  books ;  at  least,  of  those  in  which  some  Divine 
appointment  or  command  is  stated  respecting  them.  They  are 
first  brought  before  us  as  refuges  for  God's  people  from  the 
two  judgments  of  water  and  fire.  The  ark  rests  upon  the 
"  mountains  of  Ararat ;"  and  man,  having  passed  through 
that  great  baptism  unto  death,  kneels  upon  the  earth  lirst 
where  it  is  nearest  heaven,  and  mingles  with  the  mountain 
clouds  the  smoke  of  his  sacrifice  of  thanksgiving.  Again :  from 
the  midst  of  the  first  judgment  of  fire,  the  command  of  the 
Deity  to  his  servant  is,  "  Escape  to  the  mountain  ;" '  and  the 
morbid  fear  of  the  hills,  which  fills  any  human  mind  after  long 
stay  in  places  of  luxury  and  sin,  is  strangely  marked  in  Lot's 
complaining  reply :  "  I  cannot  escape  to  the  mountain,  lest 
gome  evil  take  me."  The  third  mention,  in  way  of  ordinance, 
is  a  fai  more  solemn  one :  "  Abraham  lifted  up  his  eyes,  and 
saw  the  place  afar  off."  "The  Place,"  the  Mountain  of 
M}rrh,  or  of  bitterness,  chosen  to  fulfil  to  all  the  seed  of 
Abraham,  far  off  .and  near,  the  inner  meaning  of  promise 
regarded  in  that  vow  :  UI  will  lift  up  my  eyes  unto  the  hills, 
from  whence  cometh  mine  help." 


MOUNTAINS.  90 

And  the  fourth  is  the  delivery  of  the  law  011  Sinai. 

It  seemed,  then,  to  the  monks,  that  the  mountains  were 
appointed  by  their  Maker  to  be  to  man  refuges  from  Judg- 
ment, signs  of  Redemption,  and  altars  of  Sanctification  and 
obedience ;  and  they  saw  them  afterwards  connected  in  the 
manner  the  most  touching  and  gracious,  with  the  death,  after 
his  task  had  been  accomplished,  of  the  first  anointed  Priest : 
the  death,  in  like  manner,  of  the  first  inspired  Lawgiver ; 
and,  lastly,  with  the  assumption  of  his  office  by  the  Eternal 
Priest,  Lawgiver,  and  Saviour. 

Observe  the  connection  of  these  three  events.  Although 
the  time  of  the  deaths  of  Aaron  and  Moses  was  hastened  by 
God's  displeasure,  we  have  not,  it  seems  to  me,  the  slightest 
warrant  for  concluding  that  the  manner  of  their  deaths  waa 
intended,  to  be  grievous  or  dishonorable  to  them.  Far  from 
this :  it  cannot,  I  think,  be  doubted  that  in  the  denial  of  the 
permission  to  enter  the  Promised  Land,  the  whole  punishmt- ut 
of  their  sins  was  included ;  and  that  as  far  as  regarded  the 
manner  of  their  deaths,  it  must  have  been  appointed  for  them 
by  their  Master  in  all  tenderness  and  love';  and  with  full  pur- 
pose of  ennobling  the  close  of  their  service  upon  the  earth. 
It  might  have  seemed  to  us  more  honorable  that  both  should 
have  been  permitted  to  die  beneath  the  shadow  of  the  Taber- 
nacle, the  congregation  of  Israel  watching  by  their  side  ;  and 
all  whom  they  loved  gathered  together  to  receive  the  last 
message  from  the  lips  of  the  meek  lawgiver,  and  the  last  bless- 
ing from  the  prayer  of  the  anointed  priest.  But  it  was  not 
thus  that  they  were  permitted  to  die.  Try  to  realize  that 
going  forth  of  Aaron  from  the  midst  of  the  congregation. 
He  who  had  so  often  done  sacrifice  for  their  sins,  going  forth 
now  to  offer  up  his  own  spirit.  He  who  had  stood  among 
them,  between  the  dead  and  the  living,  and  hr,d  seen  the  eyes 
of  all  that  great  multitude  turned  to  him,  '.hat  by  his  interces- 


100  NATURE. 

sion  tlieir  breath  r-ight  yet  be  drawn  a  moment  more,  going 
forth  now  to  meet  the  Angel  of  Death  face  to  face,  and  deliver 
himself  into  his  hand.  Try  if  you  cannot  walk,  in  thought, 
with  those  two  brothers,  and  the  son,  as  they  passed  the  out- 
most tents  of  Israel,  and  turned,  while  yet  the  dew  lay  round 
about  the  camp,  towards  the  slopes  of  Mount  Hor ;  talking 
together  for  the  last  time,  as  step  by  step,  they  felt  the 
steeper  rising  of  the  rocks,  and  hour  after  hour,  beneath  the 
ascending  sun,  the  horizon  grew  broader  as  they  climbed,  and 
all  the  folded  hills  of  Idumea,  one  by  one  subdued,  showed 
amidst  their  hollows  in  the  haze  of  noon,  the  windings  of  that 
long  desert  journey,  now  at  last  to  close.  But  who  shall  enter 
into  the  thoughts  of  the  High  Priest,  as  his  eye  followed  those 
paths  of  ancient  pilgrimage ;  and,  through  the  silence  of  the 
arid  and  endless  hills,  stretching  even  to  the  dim  peak  of 
Sinai,  the  whole  history  of  those  forty  years  was  unfolded 
before  him,  and  the  mystery  of  his  own  ministries  revealed 
to  him ;  and  that  other  Holy  of  Holies,  of  which  the  mountain 
peaks  were  the  altars,  and  the  mountain  clouds  the  veil,  the 
firmament  of  his  Father's  dwelling,  opened  to  him  still  more 
brightly  and  infinitely  as  he  drew  nearer  his  death ;  until  at 
last,  on  the  shadeless  summit, — from  him  on  whom  sin  was  to 
be  laid  no  more — from  him,  on  whose  heart  the  names  of  sin  fid 
nations  were  to  press  their  graven  fire  no  longer, — the  brother 
and  the  son  took  breastplate  and  ephod,  and  left  him  to  his  rest. 
There  is  indeed  a  secretness  in  this  calm  faith  and  deep 
restraint  of  sorrow,  into  which  it  is  difficult  for  us  to  enter ; 
but  the  death  of  Moses  himself  is  more  easily  to  be  conceiv  ed, 
and  had  in  it  circumstances  still  more  touching,  as  far  as 
regards  the  influence  of  the  external  scene.  For  forty  years 
Moses  had  not  been  alone.  The  care  and  burden  of  all  the 
people,  the  weight  of  their  woe,  and  guilt,  and  death,  had 
been  upon  him  continually.  The  multitude  had  beon  l&jJ 


MOUNTAINS.  101 

upon  him  as  if  he  had  conceived  them ;  their  tears  had  been 
his  meat,  night  and  day,  until  he  had  felt  as  if  God  had  with- 
drawn  His  favor  from  him,  and  he  had  prayed  that  he  might 
be  slain,  and  not  see  his  wretchedness.*  And  now,  at  last,  the 
command  came, "  Get  thee  up  into  this  mountain."  The  weary 
hands  that  had  been  so  long  stayed  up  against  the  enemies  of 
Israel,  might  lean  again  upon  the  shepherd's  staff,  and  fold 
themselves  for  the  shepherd's  prayer — for  the  shepherd's 
slumber.  Not  strange  to  his  feet,  though  forty  years  un- 
known, the  roughness  of  the  bare  mountain-path,  as  he 
climbed  from  ledge  to  ledge  of  Abarim ;  not  strange  to  hia 
aged  eyes  the  scattered  clusters  of  the  mountain  herbage,  and 
the  broken  shadows  of  the  cliffs,  indented  far  across  the 
silence  of  uninhabited  ravines ;  scenes  such  as  those  among 
which,  with  none,  as  now,  beside  him  but  God,  he  had  led  his 
flocks  so  ofte.n;  and  which  he  had  left,  how  painfully!  taking 
upon  him  the  appointed  power,  to  make  of  the  fenced  city  a 
wilderness,  and  to  fill  the  desert  with  songs  of  deliverance. 
It  was  not  to  embitter  the  last  hours  of  his  life  that  God 
restored  to  him,  for  a  day,  the  beloved  solitudes  he  had  lost ; 
and  breathed  the  peace  of  the  perpetual  hills  around  him,  and 
cast  the  world  in  which  he  had  labored  and  sinned  far  beneath 
his  feet,  in  that  mist  of  dying  blue ; — all  sin,  all  wandering, 
soon  to  be  forgotten  for  ever ;  the  Dead  Sea — a  type  of  God's 
anger  understood  by  him,  of  all  men,  most  clearly,  who  had 
seen  the  earth  open  her  mouth,  and  the  sea  his  depth,  to  over- 
whelm the  companies  of  those  who  contended  with  his  Master 
— laid  waveless  beneath  him ;  and  beyond  it,  the  fair  hills  of 
Judah,  and  the  soft  plains  and  banks  of  Jordan,  purple  in  the 
evening  light  as  with  the  blood  of  redemption,  and  fading  in 
their  distant  fulness  into  mysteries  of  promise  and  of  love, 

*  Numbers  xi  12,  15. 


102  NATURE. 

There,  with  his  unabated  strength,  his  undimmed  glanoe, 
lying  down  opon  the  utmost  rocks,  with  angels  waiting  near 
to  contend  for  the  spoils  of  his  spirit,  he  put  off  his  earthly 
armor.  We  do  deep  reverence  to  his  companion  prophet,  for 
whom  the  chariot  of  fire  came  down  from  heaven ;  but  was 
his  death  less  noble,  whom  his  Lord  Himself  buried  in  the 
vales  of  Moab,  keeping,  in  the  secrets  of  the  eternal  counsels, 
the  knowledge  of  a  sepulchre,  from  which  he  was  to  be  called, 
in  the  fulness  of  time,  to  talk  with  that  Lord  upon  Ilermon, 
of  the  death  that  He  should  accomplish  at  Jerusalem  ? 

And  lastly,  let  us  turn  our  thoughts  for  a  few  moments  to 
the  cause  of  the  resurrection  of  these  two  prophets.  We  are 
all  of  us  too  much  in  the  habit  of  passing  it  by,  as  a  thing 
mystical  and  inconceivable,  taking  place  in  the  life  of  Christ 
for  some  purpose  not  by  us  to  be  understood,  or,  at  the  best, 
merely  as  a  manifestation  of  His  divinity  by  brightness  of 
heavenly  light,  and  the  ministering  of  the  spirits  of  the  dead, 
intended  to  strengthen  the  faith  of  His  three  chosen  apostles. 
And  in  this,  as  in  many  other  events  recorded  by  the  Evange- 
lists, we  lose  half  the  meaning  and  evade  the  practical  power 
upon  ourselves,  by  never  accepting  in  its  fulness  the  idea  that 
our  Lord  was  "  perfect  man,"  "  tempted  in  all  things  like  as 
we  are."  Our  preachers  are  continually  trying,  in  all  manner 
of  subtle  ways,  to  explain  the  union  of  the  Divinity  with  the 
Manhood,  an  explanation  which  certainly  involves  first  their 
being  able  to  describe  the  nature  of  Deity  itself,  or,  in 
plain  words,  to  comprehend  God.  They  never  can  explain 
in  any  one  particular,  the  union  of  the  natures  ;  they  only  suc- 
ceed in  weakening  the  faith  of  their  hearers  as  to  the  entire- 
ness  of  either.  The  thing  they  have  to  do  is  precisely  the 
contrary  to  this — to  insist  upon  the  entireness  of  both.  We 
never  think  of  Christ  enough  as  God,  never  enough  as  Man ; 
the  instinctive  habit  of  our  minds  being  always  to  miss  of  the 


MOUNTAINS.  103 

Divinity  >  and  the  reasoning  and  enforced  habit  to  miss  of  the 
Humanity.  We  are  afraid  to  harbor  in  our  own  hearts,  or  to 
utter  in  the  hearing  of  others,  any  thought  of  our  Lord,  as 
hungering,  tired,  sorrowful,  having  a  human  soul,  a  human 
will,  and  aftected  by  events  of  human  life  as  a  finite  creature 
is ;  and  yet  one  half  of  the  efficiency  of  His  atonement,  and  the 
whole  of  the  efficiency  of  His  example,  depend  on  His  having 
been  this  to  the  full. 

Consider,  therefore,  the  Transfiguration  as  it  relates  to  the 
human  feelings  of  our  Lord.  It  was  the  first  definite  prepa- 
ration for  His  death.  He  had  foretold  it  to  His  disciples  six 
days  before  ;  then  takes  with  Him  the  three  chosen  ones  into 
"  an  high  mountain  apart."  From  an  exceeding  high  moun- 
tain, at  the  first  taking  on  Him  the  ministry  of  life,  He  had 
beheld,  and  rejected  the  kingdoms  of  the  earth  and  their 
glory :  now,  on  a  high  mountain,  He  takes  upon  Him  the 
ministry  of  death.  Peter,  and  they  that  were  with  him,  as  in 
Gethsemane,  were  heavy  with  sleep.  Christ's  work  had  to  be 
done  alone. 

The  tradition  is,  that  the  Mount  of  Transfigivration  was  the 
summit  of  Tabor  ;  but  Tabor  is  neither  a  high  mountain,  noi 
was  it  in  any  sense  a  mountain  "  apart;"  being  in  those  year& 
both  inhabited  and  fortified.  All  the  immediately  preceding 
ministries  of  Christ  had  been  at  Cesarea  Philippi.  There  ia 
no  mention  of  travel  southward  in  the  six  days  that  inter- 
vened between  the  warning  given  to  His  disciples,  and  the 
going  up  into  the  hill.  What  other  hill  could  it  be  than  the 
southward  slope  of  that  goodly  mountain,  Hermon,  which  is 
indeed  the  centre  of  all  the  Promised  Land,  from  the  entering 
in  of  Hamath  unto  the  river  of  Egypt ;  the  mount  of  fruit- 
fulness,  from  which  the  springs  of  Jordan  descended  to  the 
valleys  of  Israel.  Along  its  mighty  forest  avenues,  until  the 
grass  grew  fair  with  the  mountain  lilies  His  feet  dashed  in 


104  NATURE. 

the  dew  of  Hennon,  He  must  have  gone  to  pray  Hi3  first 
recorded  prayer  about  death  ;  and  from  the  steep  of  it,  before 
He  knelt,  could  see  to  the  south  all  the  dwelling-place  of  the 
people  that  had  sat  in  darkness,  and  seen  the  great  light,  the 
land  of  Zabulon  and  of  Naphtali,  Galilee  of  the  nations  ;— 
could  see,  even  with  His  human  sight,  the  gleam  of  that  lake 
by  Capernaum  and  Chorazin,  and  many  a  place  loved  by 
Him,  and  vainly  ministered  to,  whose  house  was  now  left 
unto  them  desolate ;  and,  chief  of  all,  far  in  the  utmost  blue, 
the  hills  above  Nazareth,  sloping  down  to  His  old  home :  hilla 
on  which  yet  the  stones  lay  loose,  that  had  been  taken  up  to 
cast  at  Him,  when  He  left  them  for  ever. 

"  And  as  he  prayed,  two  men  stood  by  him."  Among 
many  ways  in  which  we  miss  the  help  and  hold  of  Scripture, 
none  is  more  subtle  than  our  habit  of  supposing  that,  even  as 
man,  Christ  was  free  from  the  Fear  of  Death.  How  could  He 
then  have  been  tempted  as  we  are  ?  since  among  all  the  trials 
of  the  earth,  none  spring  from  the  dust  more  terrible  than 
that  Fear.  It  had  to  be  borne  by  Him  indeed,  in  a  unity, 
which  we  can  never  comprehend,  with  the  foreknowledge  of 
victory, — as  His  sorrow  for  Lazarus,  with  the  consciousness  of 
the  power  to  restore  him  ;  but  it  Jia-d  to  be  borne,  and  that  in 
its  full  earthly  terror ;  and  the  presence  of  it  is  surely  marked 
for  us  enough  by  the  rising  of  those  two  at  His  side.  When, 
in  the  desert,  he  was  girding  himself  for  the  work  of  life, 
angels  of  life  came  and  numbered  unto  Him ;  now,  in  the 
fair  world,  when  He  is  girding  himself  for  the  work  of  death, 
the  ministrants  come  to  Him  from  the  grave. 

Cut  from  the  grave  conquered.  One,  from  that  tomb  under 
Abarim,  which  His  own  hand  had  sealed  so  long  ago ;  the 
other  from  the  rest  into  which  he  had  entered,  without  seeing 
corruption.  There  stood  by  Him  Moses  and  Elias,  and  spake 
of  His  decease. 


TKEES.  1  Of) 

Then,  when  the  prayer  is  ended,  the  task  accepted,  first, 
since  the  star  paused  over  Him  at  Bethlehem,  the  full  glory 
falls  upon  Him  from  heaven,  and  the  testimony  is  borne  to 
his  everlasting  Sonship  and  power.  "  Hear  ye  him." 

If,  in  their  remembrance  of  these  things,  and  in  their  endea- 
vor to  follow  in  the  footsteps  of  their  Master,  religious  men 
of  by-gone  days,  closing  themselves  in  the  hill  solitudes,  forgot 
sometimes,  and  sometimes  feared,  the  duties  they  owed  to  the 
active  world,  we  may  perhaps  pardon  them  more  easily  than 
we  ought  to  pardon  ourselves,  if  we  neither  seek  any  influ 
ence  for  good  nor  submit  to  it  unsought,  in  scenes  to  which 
thus  all  the  men  whose  writings  AVC  receive  as  inspired,  toge- 
ther with  their  Lord,  retired  whenever  they  had  any  task  or 
trial  laid  upon  them  needing  more  than  their  usual  strength 
of  spirit.  Nor,  perhaps,  should  we  have  unprofitably  entered 
into  the  mind  of  the  earlier  ages,  if  among  our  other  thoughts, 
as  we  watch  the  chains  of  the  snowy  mountains  rise  on  the 
horizon,  we  should  sometimes  admit  the  memory  of  the  hour 
in  which  their  Creator,  among  their  solitudes,  entered  on  Hia 
travail  for  the  salvation  of  our  race  ;  and  indulge  the  dream, 
that  as  the  flaming  and  trembling  mountains  of  the  earth 
seem  to  be  the  monuments  of  the  manifesting  of  His  terror  on 
Sinai, — these  pure  and  white  hills,  near  to  the  heaven,  and 
sources  of  all  good  to  the  earth,  are  the  appointed  memorials 
of  that  Light  of  His  Mercy,  that  fell,  snow-like,  on  the  Mount 
of  Transfiguration. 


TREES. 


In  speaking  of  trees  generally,  be  it  observed,  when  1  say 
all  troes  I  mean  only  those  ordinary  forest  or  copse  trees  of 


106  NATURE. 

Europe,  which  arc  the  chief  subjects  of  the  landscape  painter 
I  do  not  mean  to  include  every  kind  of  foliage  which  by  any 
accident  can  find  its  way  into  a  picture,  but  the  ordinary 
trees  of  Europe, — oak,  elm,  ash,  hazel,  willow,  birch,  beech, 
poplar,  chestnut,  pine,  mulberry,  olive,  ilex,  carubbe,  and  such 
others.  I  do  rtot  purpose  to  examine  the  characteristics  of 
each  tree ;  it  will  be  enough  to  observe  the  laws  common  tc 
all.  First,  then,  neither  the  stems  nor  the  boughs  of  any  of 
the  above  trees  taper,  except  where  they  fork.  Wherever  a 
stem  sends  off  a  branch,  or  a  branch  a  lesser  bough,  or  a  lesser 
bough  a  bud,  the  stem  or  the  branch  is,  on  the  instant,  less  in 
diameter  by  the  exact  quantity  of  the  branch  or  the  bough 
they  have  sent  off,  and  they  remain  of  the  same  diameter ;  or 
if  there  be  any  change,  rather  increase  than  diminish  until 
they  send  off  another  branch  or  bough.  This  law  is  impera- 
tive and  without  exception;  no  bough,  nor  stem,  nor  twig, 
ever  tapering  or  becoming  narrower  towards  its  extremity  by 
a  hairbreadth,  save  where  it  parts  with  some  portion  of  its 
substance  at  a  fork  or  bud,  so  that  if  all  the  twigs  and  s.prays 
at  the  top  and  sides  of  the  tree,  which  are,  and  have  been, 
could  be  united  without  loss  of  space,  they  would  form  a 
round  log  of  the  diameter  of  the  trunk  from  which  they 
spring. 

But  as  the  trunks  of  most  trees  send  off  twigs  and  sprays 
of  light  under  foliage,  of  which  every  individual  fibre  takes 
precisely  its  own  thickness  of  wood  from  the  parent  stem,  and 
as  many  of  these  drop  off,  leaving  nothing  but  a  small  excres- 
cence to  record  their  existence,  there  is  frequently  a  slight 
and  delicate  appearance  of  tapering  bestowed  on  the  trunk 
itself;  while  the  same  operation  takes  place  much  more  exten- 
sively in  the  branches,  it  being  natural  to  almost  all  trees  to 
send  out  from  their  young  limbs  more  wood  than  they  can 
support,  which,  as  the  stem  increases,  gets  contracted  at  the 


TREES.  107 

point  of  insertion,  so  as  to  check  the  flow  of  the  sap,  and  then 
dies  and  drops  oif,  leaving  all  along  the  bongh,  first  on  one 
side,  then  on  another,  a  series  of  small  excrescences,  sufficient 
to  account  for  a  degree  of  tapering,  which  is  yet  so  very 
slight,  that  if  we  select  a  portion  of  a  branch  with  no  real  fork 
or  living  bough  to  divide  it  or  diminish  it,  the  tapering  is 
scarcely  to  be  detected  by  the  eye ;  and  if  we  select  a  portion 
without  such  evidence  of  past  ramification,  there  will  be  found 
none  whatsoever. 

But  nature  takes  great  care  and  pains  to  conceal  this  Tini- 
formity  in  her  boughs.  They  are  perpetually  parting  with 
little  sprays  here  and  there,  which  steal  away  their  substance 
cautiously,  and.  where  the  eye  does  not  perceive  the  theft, 
until,  a  little  way  above,  it  feels  the  loss ;  and  in  the  upper 
parts  of  the  tree,  the  ramifications  take  place  so  constantly 
and  delicately,  that  the  effect  upon  the  eye  is  precisely  the 
same  as  if  the  boughs  actually  tapered,  except  here  and  there, 
where  some  avaricious  one,  greedy  of  substance,  runs  on  for 
two  or  three  yards  without  parting  with  anything,  and 
becomes  ungraceful  in  so  doing. 

Hence  we  see  that  although  boughs  may,  and  must  be 
represented  as  actually  tapering,  they  must  only  be  so  when 
they  are  sending  off  foliage  and  sprays,  and  when  they  are  at 
such  a  distance  that  the  particular  forks  and  divisions  cannot 
be  evident  to  the  eye ;  and  farther,  even  in  such  circum- 
stances the  tapering  never  can  be  sudden  or  rapid.  No 
bough  ever,  with  appearance  of  smooth  tapering,  loses  more 
than  one-tenth  of  its  diameter  in  a  length  of  ten  diameters. 
Any  greater  diminution  than  this  must  be  accounted  for  by 
visible  ramification,  and  must  take  place  by  steps,  at  each  fork. 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  characters  of  natural  leafage  is 
thft  constancy  with  which,  while  the  leaves  are  arranged  on 
the  spray  with  cxo.uisite  regularity,  that  regularity  is  modi 


10S  NATTKE. 

ficd  in  their  actual  effect.  For  as  in  every  group  of  leavoe 
eome  are  seen  sideways,  forming  merely  long  lines,  somo 
foreshortened,  some  crossing  each  other,  every  one  differently 
turned  and  placed  from  all  the  others,  the  forms  of  the 
leaves,  though  in  themselves  similar,  give  rise  to  a  thousand 
strange  and  differing  forms  in  the  group ;  and  the  shadows  of 
some,  passing  over  the  others,  still  farther  disguise  and  con- 
fuse the  mass,  until  the  eye  can  distinguish  nothing  but  a 
graceful  and  flexible  disorder  of  innumerable  forms,  with  here 
and  there  a  perfect  leaf  on  the  extremity,  or  a  symmetrical 
association  of  one  or  two,  just  enough  to  mark  the  specific 
character  and  to  give  unity  and  grace,  but  never  enough  to 
repeat  in  one  group  what  was  done  in  another — never  enough 
to  prevent  the  eye  from  feeling  that,  however  regular  and 
mathematical  may  be  the  structure  of  parts,  what  is  composed 
out  of  them  is  as  various  and  infinite  as  any  other  part  of 
nature.  Nor  does  this  take  place  in  general  effect  only. 
Break  off  an  elm  bough,  three  feet  long,  in  full  leaf,  and  lay 
it  on  the  table  before  you,  and  try  to  draw  it,  leaf  for  leaf.  It 
is  ten  to  one  if  in  the  whole  bough,  (provided  you  do  not  twist 
it  about  as  you  work,)  you  find  one  form  of  a  leaf  exactly  like 
another;  perhaps  you  will  not  even  have  one  complete.  Every 
leaf  will  be  oblique,  or  foreshortened,  or  curled,  or  crossed  by 
another,  or  shaded  by  another,  or  have  something  or  other  the 
matter  with  it ;  and  though  the  whole  bough  will  look  grace- 
ful and  symmetrical,  you  will  scarcely  be  able  to  tell  how  or 
why  it  does  so,  since  there  is  not  one  line  of  it  like  another. 

The  last  and  most  important  truth  to  be  observed  respecting 
trees,  is  that  their  boughs  always,  in  finely  grown  individuals, 
bear  among  themselves  such  a  ratio  of  length  as  to  desci'ibe 
with  their  extremities  a  symmetrical  curve,  constant  for  each 
species;  and  within  this  curve  all  the  irregularities,  segment  a. 
and  divisions  of  the  tree  arc  included,  each  bough  reaching  the 


TREES.  1 09 

limit  with  its  extremity,  but  not  passing  it.  Wl.cn  a  tree  is  per 
fectly  grown,  each  bough  starts  from  the  trunk  with  just  so 
much  wood  as,  allowing  for  constant  ramification,  will  enable 
it  to  reach  the  terminal  line ;  or  if  by  mistake,  it  start  with 
too  little,  it  will  proceed  without  ramifying  till  within  a  dis- 
tance where  it  may  safely  divide;  if  on  the  contrary  it  start 
with  too  much,  it  will  ramify  quickly  and  constantly ;  or,  to 
express  the  real  operation  more  accurately,  each  bough,  grow- 
ing on  so  as  to  keep  even  with  its  neighbors,  takes  so  much 
wood  from  the  trunk  as  is  sufficient  to  enable  it  to  do  so, 
more  or  less  in  proportion  as  it  ramifies  fast  or  slowly.  In 
badly  grown  trees,  the  boughs  are  apt  to  fall  short  of  the 
curve,  or  at  least,  there  are  so  many  jags  and  openings  that  its 
symmetry  is  interrupted ;  and  in  young  trees,  the  impatience 
of  the  upper  shoots  frequently  breaks  the  line ;  but  hi  perfect 
and  mature  trees,  every  bough  does  its  duty  completely,  and 
the  line  of  curve  is  quite  filled  up,  and  the  mass  within  it  un- 
broken, so  that  the  tree  assumes  the  shape  of  a  dome,  as  in 
the  oak,  or,  in  tall  trees,  of  a  pear,  with  the  stalk  downmost. 

It  is  possible  among  plains,  in  the  species  of  trees  which 
properly  belong  to  them,  the  poplars  of  Amiens,  for  instance, 
to  obtain  a  serene  simplicity  of  grace,  which,  as  I  said,  is  a 
better  help  to  the  study  of  gracefulness,  as  such,  than  any  of 
the  wilder  groupings  of  the  hills ;  so  also,  there  are  certain 
conditions  of  symmetrical  luxuriance  developed  in  the  park 
and  avenue,  rarely  rivalled  in  their  way  among  mountains ; 
and  yet  the  mountain  superiority  in  foliage  is,  on  the  whole, 
nearly  as  complete  as  it  is  in  water ;  for  exactly  as  there  are 
some  expressions  in  the  broad  reaches  of  a  navigable  lowland 
river,  such  as  the  Loire  or  Thames,  not,  in  their  way,  to  be 
matched  among  the  rock  rivers,  and  yet  for  all  that  a  low- 
lander  cannot  be  said  to  have  truly  seen  the  element  of  water 
at  all ;  BC  even  in  his  richest  parks  and  avenues  he  cannot  be 


110  NATURE. 

said  to  have  truly  seen  trees.  For  the  resources  of  t  rees  are 
not  developed  until  they  have  difficulty  to  contend  with  ; 
neither  their  tenderness  of  brotherly  love  and  harmony,  till 
they  are  forced  to  choose  their  ways  of  various  life  where 
there  is  contracted  room  for  them,  talking  to  each  other  with 
their  restrained  branches.  The  various  action  of  trees  rooting 
themselves  in  inhospitable  rocks,  stooping  to  look  into  ravines, 
hiding  from  the  search  of  glacier  winds,  reaching  forth  to  the 
rays  of  rare  sunshine,  crowding  down  together  to  drink  at 
sweetest  streams,  climbing  hand  in  hand  among  the  difficult 
slopes,  opening  in  sudden  dances  round  the  mossy  knolls, 
gathering  into  companies  at  rest  among  the  fragrant  fields, 
gliding  in  grave  procession  over  the  heavenward  ridges, — 
nothing  of  this  can  be  conceived  among  the  unvexed  and 
unvaried  felicities  of  the  lowland  forest  :  while  to  all  these 
direct  sources  of  greater  beauty  are  added,  first  the  power  of 
redundance, — the  mere  quality  of  foliage  visible  in  the  folds 
and  on  the  promontories  of  a  single  Alp  being  greater  than 
that  of  an  entire  lowland  landscape  (unless  a  view  -from  some 
cathedral  tower) ;  and  to  this  i-harm  of  redundance,  that  of 
clearer  visibility, — tree  after  tree  being  constantly  shown  in 
successive  height,  one  behind  another,  instead  of  the  mere 
tops  and  flanks  of  masses,  as  in  the  plains  ;  and  the  forms  of 
multitudes  of  them  continually  defined  against  the  clear  sky, 
near  and  above,  or  against  white  clouds  entangled  among 
their  branches,  instead  of  being  confused  in  dimness  of  distance 

There  was  only  one  thing  belonging  to  hills  that  Shake- 
tir-cre  seemed  to  feel  as  noble — the  pine  tree,  and  that  was 
because  he  had  seen  it  in  Warwickshire,  clumps  of  pine  occa- 
sionally rising  on  little  sandstone  mounds,  as  at  the  place  of 
execution  of  Piers  (Invested),  above  the  lowland  woods.  lie 
touches  on  this  tree  fondly  again  and  again. 


TREES.  Ill 

"  As  rough, 

Their  royal  blood  enchafed,  as  the  rud'st  wind, 
That  by  his  top  doth  take  the  mountain  pine, 
And  make  him  stoop  to  the  vale." 

"  The  strong-based  promontory 
Have  I  made  shake,  and  by  the  spurs  plucked  up 
The  pine  and  cedar." 

Where  note  his  observance  of  the  peculiar  horizontal  roots  of 
the  pine,  spurred  as  it  is  by  them  like  the  claw  of  a  bird,  and 
partly  propped,  as  the  aiguilles  by  those  rock  promontories 
at  their  bases  which  I  have  always  called  their  spurs,  this 
observance  of  the  pine's  strength  and  animal-like  grasp  being 
the  chief  reason  for  his  choosing  it,  above  all  other  trees,  for 
Ariel's  prison.  Again : 

"  You  may  as  well  forbid  the  mountain  pines 
To  wag  their  high  tops,  and  to  make  no  noise 
When  they  are  fretted  with  the  gusts  of  heaveu." 

And  yet  again : 

"  But  when,  from  under  this  terrestrial  ball, 
He  fires  the  proud  tops  of  the  eastern  pines." 

I  challenge  the  untravelled  English  reader  to  tell  me  what 
an  olive-tree  is  like? 

I  know  he  cannot  answer  my  challenge.  He  has  no  more 
idea  of  an  olive-tree  than  if  olives  grew  only  in  the  fixed  stars. 
Let  him  meditate  a  little  on  this  one  fact,  and  consider  ita 
si  rangeness,  and  what  a  wilful  and  constant  closing  of  the 
eyes  to  the  most  important  truths  it  indicates  on  the  part  of 
the  modern  artist.  Observe,  a  want  of  perception,  not  of 
science.  I  do  not  want  painters  to  tell  me  any  scientific  fact? 
about  olive-trees.  But  it  had  been  well  for  them  to  have  fell 
Jt!«l  seen  t4io  olive-tree;  to  have  loved  it  for  Christ's  sake. 


112  NATURE. 

partly  also  for  the  helmed  Wisdom's  sake  which  was  to  the 
heathen  in  some  sort  as  that  nobler  Wisdom  wiiich  stood  at 
God's  right  hand,  when  He  founded  the  earth  ana  established 
the  heavens.  To  have  loved  it  even  to  the  hoary  dimness  of 
its  delicate  foliage,  subdued  and  faint  of  hue,  as  if  the  as-hes 
of  the  Gethsemane  agony  had  been  cast  upon  it  for  ever ;  and 
to  have  traced,  line  for  line,  the  gnarled  writhings  ot  its  intri- 
cate branches,  and  the  pointed  fretwork  of  its  light  and 
narrow  leaves,  inlaid  on  the  blue  field  of  the  sky,  and  the 
small  rosy-white  stars  of  its  spring  blossoming,  and  the  beads 
of  sable  fruit  scattered  by  autumn  along  its  topmost  boughs — 
the  right,  in  Israel,  of  the  stranger,  the  fatherless,  and  the 
widow, — and,  more  than  all,  the  softness  of  the  mantle,  silver 
grey,  and  tender  like  the  down  on  a  bird's  breast,  with  which, 
far  away,  it  veils  the  undulation  of  the  mountains ;  these  it 
had  been  well  for  them  to  have  seen  and  drawn,  whatever 
they  had  left  unstudied  in  the  gallery. 

The  Greek  delighted  in  the  grass  for  its  usefulness;  the 
mediaeval,  as  also  wre  moderns,  for  its  color  and  beauty.  But 
both  dwell  on  it  as  the  first  element  of  the  lovely  landscape ; 
Dante  thinks  the  righteous  spirits  of  the  heathen  enough  com- 
forted in  Hades  by  having  even  the  image  of  green  grass  put 
beneath  their  feet ;  the  happy  resting-place  in  Purgatory  hag 
no  other  delight  than  its  grass  and  flowers ;  and,  finally,  in  the 
terrestrial  paradise,  the  feet  of  Matilda  pause  where  the  Lethe 
et  ream  first  bends  the  blades  of  grass.  Consider  a  little  what 
a  depth  there  is  in  this  great  instinct  of  the  human  race. 
Gather  a  single  blade  of  grass,  and  examine  for  a  minute, 
quietly,  its  narrow  sword-shaped  strip  of  fluted  green.  No- 
thing, as  it  seems  there,  of  notable  goodness  or  beauty.  A 
very  little  strength,  and  a  very  little  tallness,  and  a  few  delicate 
long  lines  meeting  in  a  point, — not  a  perfect  point  neither 


GRASS.  1 1  3 

but  blunt  and  unfinished,  by  no  moans  a  creditable  or  appa- 
rently much  cared  for  example  of  Nature's  workmanship, 
made,  as  it  seems,  only  to  be  trodden  on  to-day,  and  to-mor- 
row to  be  cast  into  the  oven ;  and  a  little  pale  and  hollow 
Etalk,  feeble  and  flaccid,  leading  down  to  the  dull  brown  fibrea 
of  roots.  And  yet,  think  of  it  well,  and  judge  whether  of  all 
(he  gorgeous  flowers  that  beam  in  summer  air,  and  of  all  strong 
and  goodly  trees,  pleasant  to  the  eyes  and  good  for  food, — 
stately  palm  and  pine,  strong  ash  and  oak,  scented  citron, 
burdened  vine, — there  be  any  by  man  so  deeply  loved,  by 
God  so  highly  graced,  as  that  narrow  point  of  feeble  green. 
It  seems  to  me  not  to  have  been  Avithout  a  peculiar  signifi- 
cance, that  our  Lord,  Avhen  about  to  work  the  miracle  which, 
of  all  that  He  showed,  appears  to  have  been  felt  by  the  multi- 
tude as  the  most  impressive, — the  miracle  of  the  loaves, — 
commanded  the  people  to  sit  down  by  companies  "  upcn  tho 
green  grass."  He  was  about  to  feed  tl  em  with  the  principal 
produce  of  earth  and  the  sea,  the  simplest  representations  of 
the  food  of  mankind.  He  gave  them  the  seed  of  the  herb ; 
He  bade  them  sit  down  upon  the  herb  itself,  which  was  as 
great  a  gift,  in  its  fitness  for  their  joy  and  rest,  as  its  perfect 
fruit,  for  their  sustenance ;  thus,  in  this  single  order  and  act, 
when  rightly  understood,  indicating  for  evermore  how  the 
Creator  had  entrusted  the  comfort,  consolation,  and  suste- 
nance of  man,  to  the  simplest  and  most  despised  of  all  the 
leafy  families  of  the  earth.  And  well  does  it  fulfil  its  mission. 
Consider  what  we  owe  merely  to  the  meadow  grass,  to  the 
covering  of  the  dark  ground  by  that  glorious  enamel,  by  the 
companies  of  those  soft,  and  countless,  and  peaceful  spears. 
The  fields !  Follow  but  forth  for  a  little  time  the  thoughts 
of  all  that  we  ought  to  recognise  in  those  words.  All  spring 
and  summer  is  in  them, — the  walks  by  silent,  scented  paths, — 
the  rests  in  noonday  heat, — the  joy  of  herds  and  flocks, — the 


1 1  *  NATUEE. 

power  of  all  shepherd  life  and  meditation, — the  life  of  sunlight 
apon  the  world,  falling  in  emerald  streaks,  and  failing  in  soil 
blue  shadows,  where  else  it  would  have  struck  upon  the  dark 
mould,  or  scorching  dust, — pastures  beside  the  pacing  brooks, 
soft  banks  and  knolls  of  lowly  hills, — thyiny  slopes  of  down 
overlooked  by  the  blue  line  of  lifted  sea, — crisp  lawns  all  dim 
with  early  dew,  or  smooth  in  evening  warmth  of  barred  sun- 
shine, dinted  by  happy  feet,  and  softening  in  their  fall  the 
sound  of  loving  voices :  all  these  are  summed  hi  those  simple 
words ;  and  these  are  not  all.  We  may  not  measure  to  the 
full  the  depth  of  this  heavenly  gift,  in  our  own  land  ;  though 
still,  as  we  think  of  it  longer,  the  infinite  of  that  meadow 
sweetness,  Shakspere's  peculiar  joy,  would  Open  on  us  more 
and  more,  yet  we  have  it  but  in  part.  Go  out,  in  the  spring 
time,  among  the  meadows  that  slope  from  the  shores  of  the 
Swiss  lakes  to  the  roots  of  their  lower  mountains.  There, 
mingled  with  the  taller  gentians  and  the  white  narcissus,  the 
grass  grows  deep  and  free ;  and  as  you  follow  the  winding 
mountain  paths,  beneath  arching  boughs  all  veiled  and  dim 
with  blossom, — paths  that  for  ever  droop  and  rise  ovei 
the  green  banks  and  mounds  sweeping  down  in  scented  undu- 
lation, steep  to  the  blue  water,  studded  here  and  there  \\ith 
new-mown  heaps,  filling  all  the  air  with  fainter  sweetness, — 
look  up  towards  the  higher  hills,  where  the  waves  of  ever- 
lasting green  roll  silently  into  their  long  inlets  among  the 
shadows  of  the  pines ;  and  we  may,  perhaps,  at  last  know  the 
meaning  of  those  quiet  words  of  the  147th  Psalm,  "lie 
maketh  grass  to  grow  upon  the  mountains." 

There  are  also  several  lessons  symbolically  connected  with 
this  subject,  which  we  must  not  allow  to  escape  us.  Observe, 
the  peculiar  characters  of  the  grass,  which  adapt  it  especially 
for  the  service  of  man,  are  its  apparent  humility  and  ch<-(  rj'nl- 
ness.  Its  humility,  in  that  it  seems  created  only  for  lowest, 


GRASS.  115 

service, — appointed  to  be  trodden  on.  and  fed.  up  HI.  Its 
cheerfulness,  in  that  it  seems  to  exult  under  all  kinds  of 
violence  and  suffering.  You  roll  it,  and  it  is  stronger  the 
next  day ;  you  mow  it,  and  it  multiplies  its  shoots,  as  if  it 
were  grateful ;  you  tread  upon  it,  and,  it  only  sends  up  richer 
perfume.  Spring  comes,  and  it  rejoices  with  all  the  earth, — 
glowing  with  variegated  flame  of  flowers, — waving  in  soft 
depth  of  fruitful  strength.  Winter  comes,  and  though  it  will 
not  mock  its  fellow  plants  by  growing  then,  it  will  not  pine  and 
mourn,  and  turn  colorless  or  leafless  as  they.  It  is  always  green ; 
and  it  is  only  the  brighter  and  gayer  for  the  hoar-frost. 

Xow,  these  two  characters — of  humility,  and  joy  under 
trial — are  exactly  those  which  most  definitely  distinguish  the 
Christian  from  the  Pagan  spirit.  Whatever  virtue  the  pagan 
possessed  was  rooted  in  pride,  and  fruited  with  sorrow.  It 
began  in  the  elevation  of  his  own  nature ;  it  ended  but  in  the 
"verde  smalt o" — the  hopeless  green — of  the  Elysian  fields. 
But  the  Christian  virtue  is  rooted  in  self-debasement,  and 
strengthened  under  suffering  by  gladness  of  hope.  And 
remembering  this,  it  is  curious  to  observe  how  utterly  without 
gladness  the  Greek  heart  appears  to  be  in  watching  the  flower 
ing  grass,  and  what  strange  discords  of  expression  arise  some- 
times in  consequence.  There  is  one,  recurring  once  or  twico 
in  Homer,  which  has  always  pained  me.  He  says,  "  the  Greek 
army  was  on  the  fields,  as  thick  as  flowers  in  the  spring." 
It  might  be  so  ;  but  flowers  in  spring  time  are  not  the  image 
by  which  Dante  would  have  numbered  soldiers  on  their  path 
of  battle.  Dante  could  not  have  thought  of  the  floweiing 
of  the  grass  but  as  associated  with  happiness.  There  is  a 
still  deeper  significance  in  a  passage  from  Homer,  describing 
Ulysses  casting  himself  down  on  the  rushes  and  the  corn-giving 
land  at  the  river  shore, — the  rushes  and  corn  being  to  him 
only  good  for  rest  and  sustenance, — when  we  compare  it  with 


110  NATURE. 

thai  in  which  Dante  tells  us  he  was  ordered  to  descend  to  the 
shore  of  the  lake  as  he  entered  Purgatory,  to  gather  a  rush-, 
and  gird  himself  with  it,  it  being  to  him  the  emblem  not  only 
of  rest,  but  of  humility  under  chastisement,  the  rush  (or  reed) 
being  the  only  plant  which  can  grow  there  ; — "no  plant  Avhich 
bears  leaves,  or  hardens  its  bark,  can  live  on  that  shore,  be- 
cause it  does  not  yield  to  the  chastisement  of  its  waves."  It 
cannot  but  strike  the  reader  singularly  how  deep  and  harmoni- 
ous a  significance  runs  through  all  these  words  of  Dante — how 
every  syllable  of  them,  the  more  we  penetrate  it,  becomes  a 
seed  of  farther  thought.  For,  follow  up  this  image  of  the 
girdling  with  the  reed,  under  trial,  and  see  to  whose  feet  it 
will  lead  us.  As  the  grass  of  the  earth,  thought  of  as  the  herb 
yielding  seed,  leads  us  to  the  place  where  our  Lord  commanded 
the  multitude  to  sit  down  by  companies  upon  the  green  grass  ; 
so  the  grass  of  the  waters,  thought  of  as  sustaining  itself  among 
the  waters  of  affliction,  leads  us  to  the  place  where  a  stem  of 
it  was  put  into  our  Lord's  hand  for  his  sceptre ;  and  in  the 
crown  of  thorns,  and  the  rod  of  reed,  was  foreshown  the  ever- 
lasting truth  of  the  Christian  ages — that  all  glory  was  to  be 
begun  in  suffering,  and  all  power  in  humility. 

Assembling  the  images  we  have  traced,  nn«l  adding  the 
simplest  of  all,  from  Isaiah  xl.  6.,  we  find,  the  grass  and 
flowers  are  types,  in  their  passing,  of  the  passing  of  human 
life,  and,  in  their  excellence,  of  the  excellence  of  human  life ; 
and  this  in  a  twofold  way ;  first,  by  their  Beneficence,  and 
then,  by  their  endurance : — the  grass  of  the  earth,  in  giving 
(he  seed  of  corn,  and  in  its  beauty  under  tread  of  foot  and 
stroke  of  scythe ;  and  the  grass  of  the  waters,  in  giving  its 
freshness  for  our  rest,  and  in  its  bending  before  the  wave.* 

*  So  also  in  Isa.  xxxv.  ?.,  the  prevalence  of  righteousci-ss  and  peace  over 
all  evil  is  thus  foretold: 

"In  the  habitation  ot  dragons.  \vl  ere  e::ch  lay,  shall  ]K' grass,  with  reeds 
and  rushe*." 


GRASS.  117 

But  understood  in  the  broad  human  and  Divine  sense,  the 
"  herb  yielding  seed"  (as  opposed  to  the  fruit-tree  yielding  fruit) 
includes  a  third  family  of  plants,  and  fulfils  a  third  office  to 
the  human  race.  It  includes  the  great  family  of  the  lints  ai-d 
flaxes,  and  fulfils  thus  the  three,  offices  of  giving  food,  raiment, 
and  rest.  Follow  out  this  fulfilment ;  consider  the  association 
of  the  linen  garment  and  the  linen  embroidery,  with  the 
priestly  office,  and  the  furniture  of  the  tabernacle ;  and  con- 
sider how  the  rush  has  been,  in  all  time,  the  first  natural  car- 
pet thrown  under  the  human  foot.  Then  next  observe  the 
three  virtues  definitely  set  forth  by  the  three  families  of 
plants  ;  not  arbitrarily  or  fancifully  associated  with  them,  but 
in  all  the  three  cases  marked  for  us  by  Scriptural  words : 

1st.  Cheerfulness,  or  joyful  serenity;  in  the  grass  for  food 
and  beauty. — "  Consider  the  lilies  of  the  field,  how  they  grow; 
they  toil  not,  neithei  do  they  spin." 

2nd.  Humility;  in  the  grass  for  rest.  —  "A  bruised  reed 
shall  He  not  break." 

3rd.  Love ;  in  the  grass  for  clothing  (because  of  its  swift 
kindling), — "The  smoking  flax  shall  ho  not  quench." 

And  then,  finally,  observe  the  confirmation  of  these  last  two 
images  in,  I  suppose,  the  most  important  prophecy,  relating 
to  the  future  state  of  the  Christian  Church,  which  occurs  in 
the  Old  Testament,  namely,  that  contained  in  the  closing 
chapters  of  Ezekiel.  The  measures  of  the  Temple  of  God  are 
to  be  taken ;  and  because  it  Is  only  by  charity  and  humility 
that  those  measures  ever  can  be  taken,  the  angel  has  "a  line 
of  flax  in  his  hand,  and  a  measuring  reed."  The  use  of  the 
line  was  to  measure  the  land,  and  of  the  reed .  to  take  the 
dimensions  of  the  buildings;  so  the  buildings  of  the  church,' 01 
its  labors,  are  to  be  measured  by  humility,  and  its  territory  or 
land,  by  love, 

The  limits  of  the  Church  have,  indeed,  in  later  days,  been 


118  NATURE. 

measured,  to  the  world»s  sorrow,  by  another  kinl  of  laxen 
line,  burning  with  the  fire  of  unholy  zeal,  not  with  that  of 
Christian  charity ;  and  perhaps  the  best  lesson  which  we  can 
finally  take  to  ourselves,  in  leaving  these  sweet  fields,  is  the 
memory  that,  in  spite  of  all  the  fettered  habits  of  thought  of 
his  age,  this  great  Dante,  this  inspired  exponent  of  what  lay 
deepest  at  the  heart  of  the  early  Church,  placed  his  terrestrial 
paradise  where  there  had  ceased  to  be  fence  or  division,  and 
where  the  grass  of  the  earth  was  bowed  down,  in  unity  of 
direction,  only  by  the  soft  waves  that  bore  with  them  the  for- 
getfulness  of  eviL 


JJart  3. 


EVERY  man  has  at  some  time  of  his  life  personal  interest  in  Architecture. 
He  has  influence  on  the  design  of  some  public  building;  or  he  has  to  buy,  or 
build,  or  alter  hjs  own  house.  It  signifies  less  whether  the  kuouloige  of 
other  arts  be  general  or  not;  men  may  live  without  buying  pirt  irea  or 
statues.  They  must  do  mischief,  and  waste  their  money  if  thej  dc  not 
know  how  to  turn  it  to  account. 


Hart  3. 

ARCHITECTURE. 
AKT. 

ARCHITECTURE  (considered  as  a  fine  art)  is  the  art  which  so 
disposes  and  adorns  the  edifices  raised  by  man  for  whatsoever 
uses,  that  the  sight  of  them  contribute  to  his  mental  health, 
power,  and  pleasure. 

Architecture  proper,  then,  naturally  arranges  itself  under 
five  heads : — 

Devotional ;  including  all  buildings  raised  for  God's  service 
or  honor. 

Memorial ;  including  both  monuments  and  tombs. 

Civil ;  including  every  edifice  raised  by  nations  or  societies, 
for  purposes  of  common  business  or  pleasure. 

Military ;  including  all  private  and  public  architecture  of 
defence. 

Domestic  ;  including  every  rank  and  kind  of  dwelling-place. 

Those  peculiar  aspects  which  belong  to  the  first  of  the  arts, 
I  have  endeavored  to  trace ;  and  since,  if  truly  stated,  they 
must  necessarily  be,  not  only  safeguards  against  error,  but 
sources  of  every  measure  of  success,  I  do  not  think  I  claim 
too  much  for  them  in  calling  them  the  Lamps  of  Architec 
tore. 

The  seven  Lamps  of  Architecture — 

1.  The  Lamp  of  Sacrifice. 

2.  The  Lamp  of  Truth. 

ft 


122  ARCHITECTURE. 

3.  The  Lamp  ol  Power. 

4.  The  Lamp  of  Beauty. 

5.  The  Lamp  of  Life. 

6.  The  Lamp  of  Memory. 

7.  The  Lamp  of  Obedience. 

I.  The  Lamp  or  Spirit  of  Sacrifice  prompts  us  to  the  offer- 
ing of  precious  things,  merely  because  they  are  precious,  not ' 
because  they  are  useful  or  necessary.  Was  it  necessary  to  the 
completeness,  as  a  type,  of  the  Levitical  sacrifice,  or  to  its 
utility  as  an  explanation  of  divine  purposes,  that  it  should 
cost  anything  to  the  person  in  whose  behalf  it  was  offered  ? 
Costliness  was  generally  a  condition  of  the  acceptableness 
of  the  sacrifice.  "  Neither  will  I  offer  unto  the  Lord  my  God 
of  that  which  did  cost  me  nothing."  That  costliness,  there- 
fore, must  be  an  acceptable  condition  in  all  human  offerings  at 
all  times ;  for  if  it  was  pleasing  to  God  once,  it  must  please 
Him  always,  unless  directly  forbidden  by  Him  afterwards, 
which  it  has  never  been. 

"Was  the  glory  of  the  tabernacle  necessary  to  set  forth  or 
image  His  Divine  glory  to  the  minds  of  His  people  ?  What ! 
purple  or  scarlet  necessaiy  to  the  people  who  had  seen  the 
great  river  of  Egypt  run  scarlet  to  the  sea,  under  His  con- 
demnation ?  What !  golden  lamp  and  cherub  necessary  for 
those  who  had  seen  the  fires  of  heaven  falling  like  a  mantle  on 
Mount  Sinai,  and  its  golden  courts  opened  to  receive  their 
mortal  lawgiver  ?  What !  silver  clasp  and  fillet  necessary 
when  they  had  seen  the  silver  waves  of  the  Red  Sea  clasp 
in  their  arched  hollows  the  corpses  of  the  horse  and  his  rider  ? 
Nay — not  so.  There  was  but  one  reason,  and  that  an  eternal 
one ;  that  as  the  covenant  that  He  made  with  man  was  accom- 
panied with  some  external  sign  of  its  continuance,  an  I  of  His 
remembrance  of  it,  so  the  acceptance  of  that  covenant  might 
be  marked  and  signified  by  use,  in  some  external  sign  of  thcii 


AUT.  •  12$ 

love  and  obedience,  and  surrender  :>f  themselves  and  tneira 
to  His  will ;  and  that  their  gratitude  to  Him,  and  continual 
remembrance  ot  Him,  might  have  at  once  their  expression  and 
their  enduring  testimony  in  the  presentation  to  Him,  not  only 
of  the  firstlings  of  the  herd  and  fold,  not  only  of  the  fruits  ot 
the  earth  and  the  tithe  of  time,  but  of  all  treasures  of  wisdom 
and  beauty ;  of  the  thought  that  invents,  and  the  hand  that 
labors ;  of  wealth  of  wood,  and  weight  of  stone  ;  of  the 
strength  of  iron,  and  of  the  light  of  gold. 

It  has  been  said — it  ought  always  to  be  said,  for  it  is  true — • 
that  a  better  and  more  honorable  offering  is  made  to  our 
Master  in  ministry  to  the  poor,  in  extending  the  knowledge 
of  His  name,  in  the  practice  of  the  virtues  by  which  that  name 
is  hallowed,  than  in  material  presents  to  His  temple.  Assu- 
redly it  is  so ;  woe  to  all  who  think  that  any  other  kind  or 
manner  of  offering  may  in  any  wise  take  the  place  of  these  ! 
Do  the  people  need  place  to  pray,  and  calls  to  hear  His  word  ? 
Then  it  is  no  time  for  smoothing  pillars  or  carving  pulpits.; 
let  us  have  enough  first  of  walls  and  roofs.  Do  the  people 
need  teaching  from  house  to  house,  and  bread  from  day  to 
day  ?  Then  they  are  deacons  and  ministers  we  want,  not 
architects.  I  insist  on  this,  I  plead  for  this  ;  but  let  us 
examine  ourselves,  and  see  if  this  be  indeed  the  reason  for  our 
backwardness  in  the  lesser  work.  The  question  is  not  be- 
tween God's  house  and  His  poor:  it  is  not  between  God's 
house  and  His  gospel.  It  is  between  God's  house  and  ours. 
Have  we  no  tesselated  colors  on  our  floors  ?  no  frescoed 
fancies  on  our  roofs  ?  no  niched  statuary  in  our  corridors  ? 
no  gilded  furniture  in  our  chambers  ?  no  costly  stones  in  our 
cabinets  ?  Has  even  the  tithe  of  these  been  offered  ?  They 
are,  or  they  ought  to  be,  the  signs  that  enough  has  been 
devoted  to  the  great  purposes  of  human  stewardship,  and  that 
there  remains  to  us  what  we  can  spcnc1  in  luxury;  but  there-  is 


124  ARCHITECTURE. 

a  greater  and  prouder  luxury  than  this  selfish  one-  -that  of 
bringing  a  portion  of  such  things  as  these  into  sacred  service. 
and  presenting  them  for  a  memorial  that  our  pleasure  as  well 
as  our  toil  has  been  hallowed  by  the  remembrance  of  Him 
who  gave  both  the  strength  and  the  reward.  And  until  this 
has  been  done,  I  do  not  see  how  such  possessions  can  be 
retained  in  happiness.  I  do  not  understand  the  feeling  which 
would  arch  our  own  gates  and  pave  our  own  thresholds,  and 
leave  the  church  with  its  narrow  door  and  foot-worn  sill ;  the 
feeling  which  enriches  our  own  chambers  with  all  manner  oi 
costliness,  and  endures  the  bare  wall  and  mean  compass  of  the 
temple. 

The  tenth  part  of  the  expense  which  is  sacrificed  in  domes 
tic  vanities,  would,  if  collectively  offered  and  wisely  employed, 
build  a  marble  church  for  every  town  in  England;  such  a 
church  as  it  should  be  a  joy  and  a  blessing  even  to  pass  near 
in  our  daily  ways  and  walks,  and  as  it  would  bring  the  light 
into  the  eyes  to  see  from  far,  lifting  its  fair  height  above  the 
purple  crowd  of  humble  roofs. 

I  have  said  for  every  town  :  I  do  not  want  a  marble  church 
for  every  village ;  nay,  I  do  not  want  marble  churches  at  all 
for  their  own  sakes,  but  for  the  sake  of  the  spirit  that  would 
build  them.  The  church  has  no  need  of  any  visible  splendors ; 
her  power  is  independent  of  them,  her  purity  is  in  some  degree 
opposed  to  them.  The  simplicity  of  a  pastoral  sanctuary  is 
lovelier  than  the  majesty  of  an  urban  temple ;  and  it  may  be 
more  than  questioned  whether,  to  the  people,  such  majesty  has 
ever  been  the  source  of  any  increase  of  effective  piety  ;  but  to 
the  builders  it  has  been,  and  must  ever  be.  It  is  not  the  church 
\vc  want,  but  the  sacrifice  ;  not  the  emotion  of  admiration,  but 
the  act  of  adoration ;  not  the  gift,  but  the  giving  (St.  John  xii.  5). 

God  never  forgets  any  work  or  labor  of  love ;  and  what- 
ever it  may  be  of  which  the  first  and  best  portions  or  powers 


THE  LAMP    OF   TRUTH.  126 

have  been  presented  to  Him,  He  will  multiply  and  increase 
sevenfold.  Therefore,  though  it  may  not  be  necessarily  the 
interest  of  religion  to  admit  the  service  of  the  arts,  the  arts 
will  never  flourish  till  they  have  been  primarily  devoted  to 
ll.i at  service — devoted  both  by  architect  and  employer;  by  the 
one  in  scrupulous,  earnest,  affectionate  design ;  by  the  other 
in  expenditure  at  least  more  frank,  at  least  less  calculating, 
than  that  which  he  would  admit  in  the  indulgence  of  his  own 
private  feelings. 


H. — THE  LAMP   OF   TRUTH. 

There  are  some  faults  slight  hi  the  si^ht  of  love,  some 
errors  slight  in  the  estimate  of  wisdom ;  but  Truth  forgives 
no  insult,  and  endures  no  stain. 

I  would  have  the  Spirit  or  Lamp  of  Truth  clear  in  the 
hearts  of  our  ai-tists  and  handicraftsmen,  not  as  if  the  truthful 
practice  of  handicrafts  could  far  advance  the  cause  of  Truth, 
but  because  I  would  fain  see  the  handicrafts  themselves  urged 
by  the  spurs  of  chivalry. 

We  may  not  be  able  to  command  good,  or  beautiful,  or 
inventive  architecture,  but  we  can  command  an  honest  archi 
tecture :  the  meagreness  of  poverty  may  be  pardoned,  the 
sternness  of  utility  respected ;  but  what  is  there  but  scorn  for 
tne  meanness  of  deception  ? 

The  worth  of  a  diamond  is  simply  the  understanding  of  the 
time  it  must  take  to  look  for  it  before  it  is  found,  and  the  worth 
of  an  ornament  is  the  time  it  must  take  before  it  can  be  cut. 
I  suppose  that  hand-wrought  ornament  can  no  more  be  gene- 
rally known  from  machine-work  than  a  diamond  can  De  known 
from  paste.  Yet  exactly  as  a  woman  of  feeling  would  not  wear 


126  ARCHITECTU  RE. 

false  jewels,  so  would  a  builder  of  honor  disdain  false  orna- 
ments. The  using  of  them  is  just  as  downright  and  inexcu- 
sable as  a  lie.  You  use  that  which  pretends  to  a  worth  which 
it  has  not ;  which  pretends  to  have  cost,  and  to  be,  what  it 
did  not,  and  is  not;  it  is  an  imposition,  a  vulgarity,  an  imper- 
tinence, and  a  sin.  Nobody  wants  ornaments  in  this  world, 
but  everybody  wants  integrity.  All  the  fail'  devices  that  ever 
were  fancied,  are  not  worth  a  lie. 

This  being  a  general  law,  there  are,  nevertheless,  certain 
exceptions  respecting  particular  substances  and  their  uses. 
Thus  in  the  use  of  brick;  since  that  is  known  to  be 
originally  moulded,  there  is  no  reason  why  it  should  not  be 
moulded  into  divers  forms.  It  will  never  be  supposed  to 
have  been  cut,  and  therefore  will  cause  no  deception;  it  will 
have  only  the  credit  it  deserves. 


HI. — THE   LAMP    OF   POWER. 

All  building  shows  man  either  as  gathering  or  governing ; 
and  the  secrets  of  his  success  are  his  knowing  what  to  gather, 
and  how  to  rule. 

There  is  a  sympathy  hi  the  forms  of  noble  building,  with 
what  is  most  sublime  in  natural  things;  and  it  5s  the  governing 
Power,  directed  by  this  sympathy,  whose  operation  I  shall 
cndcavfir  to  trace. 

In  the  edifices  of  Man  there  should  be  found  reverent  wor- 
ship and  following,  not  only  of  the  spirit  which  rounds  the 
pillars  of  the  forest,  and  arches  the  vault  of  the  avenue — • 
which  gives  reining  to  the  leaf,  and  polish  to  the  shell,  and 
grace  to  every  pulse  that  agitates  animal  organization, — but 
of  that  also  which  upheaves  the  pillars  of  the  earth,  and  build? 


THE   LAMP    OF   POWEB.  127 

up  her  barren  precipices  into  the  coldness  of  the  clouds,  and 
lifts  her  shadowy  cones  of  mountain  purple  into  tie  pale  arch 
of  the  sky;  for  these,  and  other  glories  more  than  these, 
refuse  not  to  connect  themselves  in  his  thoughts,  with  the 
work  of  his  own  hand ;  the  grey  cliff  loses  not  its  noble- 
ness when  it  reminds  us  of  some  Cyclopean  waste  of  mural 
stone ;  the  pinnacles  of  the  rocky  promontory  arrange  them- 
selves,  undegraded,  into  fantastic  semblances  of  fortress  tow- 
ers ;  and  even  the  awful  cone  of  the  far-off  mountain  has  a 
melancholy  mixed  with  that  of  its  own  solitude,  which  is 
east  from  the  images  of  nameless  tumuli  on  white  sea-shores, 
and  of  the  heaps  of  reedy  clay,  into  which  chambered  cities 
melt  in  their  mortality. 

Though  mere  size  will  not  ennoble  a  mean  design,  yet 
every  increase  of  magnitude  will  bestow  upon  it  a  certain 
degree  of  nobleness ;  so  that  it  is  well  to  determine,  at  first, 
whether  the  building  is  to  be  markedly  beautiful,  or  mark- 
edly sublime. 

It  has  often  been  observed  that  a  building,  in  order  to  show 
its  magnitude,  must  be  seen  all  at  once.  It  would  be  better 
to  say,  that  it  must  have  one  visible  bounding  line  from  top 
to  bottom,  and  from  end  to  end.  This  bounding  line  from  top 
to  bottom  may  be  inch'ned  inwards,  and  the  ma'ss,  therefore, 
pyramidal ;  or  vertical,  and  the  mass  form  one  grand  cliff;  or 
inclined  outwards,  as  in  the  advancing  fronts  of  old  houses,  and, 
in  a  sort,  in  the  Greek  temple,  and  all  buildings  with  heavy 
cornices  or  heads.  I  am  much  inclined,  myself,  to  love  the 
true  vertical,  or  the  vertical  with  a  solemn  frown  of  pro- 
jection. 

What  is  needful  in  the  setting  forth  of  magnitude  in  height, 
is  right  also  in  the  marking  it  in  area, — let  it  be  gathered  well 
together.  Whatever  infinity  of  fair  form  there  may  be  in  the 
of  the.  forest,  there  is  a  fairer  in  the  surface  of  the  quiet 


128  ARCHITECTURE. 

lake  ;  and  I  hardly  know  that  association  of  shaft  or  tracery, 
for  which  I  would  exchange  the  warm  sleep  of  sunshine  ou 
some  smooth,  broad,  human-like  front  of  marble.  Neverthe- 
less, if  breadth  is  to  be  beautiful,  its  substance  must  in  some 
sort  be  beautiful. 

Positive  shade  is  a  more  necessary  and  more  sublime  tiling 
m  an  architect's  hands  than  in  a  painter's.  After  size  and 
weight  the  Power  of  architecture  may  be  said  to  depend  ou 
the  quantity  of  its  shadow.  As  the  great  poem  and  the 
great  fiction  generally  affect  us  most  by  the  majesty  of  their 
masses  of  shade,  and  cannot  take  hold  upon  us  if  they  affect  a 
continuance  of  lyric  sprightliness,  but  must  be  serious  often, 
and  sometimes  melancholy,  else  they  do  not  express  the  truth 
of  this  wild  world  of  ours ;  so  there  must  be,  in  this  magnifi- 
cently human  ai-t  of  architecture,  some  equivalent  expression 
for  the  trouble  and  wrath  of  life,  for  its  sorrow  and  its  mys- 
tery ;  and  this  it  can  only  give  by  depth  or  diffusion  of  gloom, 
by  the  frown  upon  its  front,  and  the  shadow  of  its  recess.  So 
that  Rembrandtism  is  a  noble  manner  in  architecture,  though 
a  false  one  in  painting ;  and  I  do  not  believe  that  ever  any 
building  was  truly  great,  unless  it  had  mighty  masses,  vigo- 
rous and  deep,  of  shadow  mingled  with  its  surface.  And  among 
the  first  habits  that  a  young  architect  should  learn,  is  that  ot 
thinking  in  shadow,  not  looking  at  a  design  in  its  miserable 
liny  skeleton,  but  conceiving  it  as  it  will  be,  when  the  dawn 
lights  it,  and  the  dusk  leaves  it,  when  its  stones  will  be  hot, 
and  its  crannies  cool ;  when  the  lizards  Avill  bask  on  the  one, 
and  the  birds  build  in  the  other.  Let  him  design  with  the 
sense  of  cold  and  heat  upon  him ;  let  him  cut  out  the  sha- 
dows, as  men  dig  wells  in  unwatered  plains ;  and  lead  along 
the  lights,  as  a  founder  does  his  hot  metal ;  let  him  keep  the 
full  command  of  both,  and  see  that  he  knows  how  they  fall 
and  where  they  fade. 


THE    LAMP    OF    POWER.  12Q 

Until  our  street  architecture  is  bettered,  until  we  give  it 
some  size  ar>d  boldness,  until  .we  give  our  windows  recess  and 
our  walls  thickness,  I  know  not  how  we  can  blame  our  archi- 
tects for  their  feebleness  in  more  important  works.  Their 
eyes  are  inured  to  narrowness  and  slightness ;  can  we  expect 
them  at  a  word  to  conceive  and  deal  with  breadth  and  soli- 
dity ?  They  ought  not  to  live  in  our  cities  ;  there  is  that  in 
their  miserable  walls  which  bricks  up  to  death  men's  imagina- 
tions, as  surely  as  ever  perished  forsworn  men.  An  architect 
should  live  as  little  in  cities  as  a  painter.  Send  him  to  our 
hills,  and  let  him  study  there  what  nature  understands  by  a 
buttress,  and  what  by  a  dome. 

We  have  sources  of  Power  in  the  imagery  of  our  iron 
coasts  and  azure  hills ;  of  power  more  pure,  nor  less  serene 
than  that  of  the  hermit  spirit  which  once  lighted  with  white 
lines  of  cloisters  the  glades  of  the  Alpine  pine,  and  raised  into 
ordered  spires  the  wild  rocks  of  the  Norman  sea  ;  which  gave 
to  the  temple  gate  the  depth  and  darkness  of  Elijah's  Horeb 
cave  ;  and  lifted,  out  of  the  populous  city,  grey  cliffs  of  lonely 
stone,  into  the  midst  of  sailing  birds  and  silent  air. 

Do  not  think  you  can  have  good  architecture  merely  by 
paying  for  it  ?  It  is  only  by  active  and  sympathetic  attention 
to  the  domestic  and  every-day-work  which  is  done  for  each 
of  you,  that  you  can  educate  either  yourselves  to  the  feeling 
or  your  builders  to  the  doing  of  what  is  truly  great. 

Well  but,  you  will  answer,  you  cannot  feel  interested  in 
Architecture :  you  do  not  care  about  and  cannot  care  about  it. 

You  think  within  yourselves,  "  it  is  not  right  that  architec- 
ture should  be  interesting.  It  is  a  very  grand  thing  this  archi- 
tecture, but  essentially  unentertaining.  It  is  its  duty  to  be 
dull,  it  is  monotonous  by  law;  it  cannot  Jbe  correct  and  yet 
amusing." 

Believe  me,  it  is  not  so.  All  things  that  are  worth  doing 

6* 


130  ABCHTTEGTURE. 

in  art,  are  interesting  and  attractive  when  they  aie  done. 
There  is  no  law  of  righ*  which  consecrates  dulness.  The 
proof  of  a  thing's  being  right  is,  that  it  has  power  over  the 
heart,  that  it  excites  us,  wins  us,  or  helps  us. 

All  good  art  has  the  capacity  of  pleasing,  if  people  will 
attend  to  it ;  there  is  no  law  against  its  pleasing ;  but  on  the 
contrary,  something  wrong  either  in  the  spectator  or  the  art 
when  it  ceases  to  please. 

"  But  what  are  we  to  do  ?  We  cannot  make  architects  of 
ourselves,"  Pardon  me,  you  can — and  you  ought.  Archi- 
tecture is  an  art  for  all  men  to  learn,  because  all  are  con- 
cerned with  it ;  and  it  is  so  simple,  that  there  is  no  excuse  for 
not  being  acquainted  with  its  primary  rules,  any  more  than 
for  ignorance  of  grammar  or  spelling,  which  are  both  of  them 
far  more  difficult  sciences. 

Far  less  trouble  than  is  necessary  to  learn  how  to  play 
chess,  or  whist,  or  golf,  tolerably, — far  less  than  a  schoolboy 
takes  to  win  the  meanest  prize  of  the  passing  year,  would 
acquaint  you  with  all  the  main  principles  of  the  construction 
of  a  Gothic  cathedral,  and  I  believe  you  would  hardly  find 
the  study  less  amusing. 


IV. — THE  LAMP   OF   BEAUTY. 

The  value  of  Architecture  depends  on  two  distinct  charac- 
ters : — the  one,  the  impression  it  receives  from  human  powei , 
the  other,  the  image  it  bears  of  the  natural  creation. 

It  will  be  thought  that  I  have  somewhat  limited  the 
elements  of  architectural  beauty  to  imitative  forms.  I  do  not 


THE   LAMP    OF    BEAUTY.  131 

mean  to  assort  that  every  arrangement  of  line  is  directly  sug 
gested  by  a  natural  object;  but  that  all  beautiful  lines  are  adap- 
tations of  those  wMch  are  commonest  in  the  external  creation; 
that  in  proportion  to  the  richness  of  their  association,  the  re- 
semblance to  natural  work,  as  a  type  and  help,  must  be  more 
closely  attempted,  and  more  clearly  seen ;  and  that  beyond  a 
certain  point,  and  that  a  very  low  one,  man  cannot  advance  in 
the  invention  of  beauty,  without  directly  imitating  natural 
form. 

There  are  many  forms  of  so  called  decoration  in  Architec- 
tm-e,  habitual,  and  received  therefore  with  approval,  or  at  ail 
events  without  any  venture  at  expression  of  dislike,  which  I 
have  no  hesitation  in  asserting  to  be  not  ornament  at  all,  but 
to  be  ugly  things,  the  expense  of  which  ought,  in  truth,  to  be 
set  down  in  the  architect's  contract,  as  "For  Monstrification." 
I  believe  that  Ave  regard  these  customary  deformities  with 
a  savage  complacency,  as  an  Indian  does  his  flesh  patterns  and 
paint — all  nations  being  in  certain  degrees  and  senses  savage. 

I  suppose  there  is  no  conceivable  form  or  grouping  of 
forms  but  in  some  part  of  the  universe  an  example  of  it  may 
be  found.  On  the  shapes  which  in  the  every-day  world  are 
familiar  to  the  eyes  of  men,  God  has  stamped  those  characters 
of  beauty  which  He  has  made  it  man's  nature  to  love ;  while 
in  certain  exceptional  forms  He  has  shown  that  the  adoption 
of  the  others  was  not  a  matter  of  necessity,  but  part  of  the 
adjusted  harmony  of  creation.  Knowing  a  thing  to  be 
frequent,  we  may  assume  it  to  be  beautiful ;  and  assume  that 
which  is  most  frequent  to  be  most  beautiful :  I  mean,  of  course, 
visibly  frequent ;  for  the  forms  of  things  which  are  hidden  in 
caverns  of  the  earth,  or  in  the  anatomy  of  animal  frames,  are 
evidently  not  intended  by  their  Maker  to  bear  the  habitual 
gaze  of  man.  And,  again,  by  frequency  I  mean  that  limited 
and  isolated  frequency  which  is  characteristic  of  all  perfection: 


132  ARCH  ITFXTTURE 

as  a  rose  is  a  common  flower,  but  yet  there  are  not  so  many 
roses  on  the  tree  as  there  are  leaves.  In  th  's  respect  Nature 
is  sparing  of  her  highest,  and  lavish  of  her  less  beauty ;  but  I 
call  the  flower  as  frequent  as  the  leaf,  because,  each  in  ita 
allotted  quantity,  where  the  one  is,  there  will  ordinarily  be 
the  other. 

Architecture,  in  borrowing  the  objects  of  Nature,  is  bound 
to  place  them,  as  far  as  may  be  in  her  power,  in  such  associ- 
ations as  may  befit  and  express  their  origin.  She  is  not  to 
imitate  directly  the  natural  arrangement ;  she  is  not  to  carve 
irregular  stems  of  ivy  up  her  columns  to  account  for  the  leaves 
at  the  top,  but  she  is  nevertheless  to  place  her  most  exuberant 
vegetable  ornament  just  where  Nature  would  have  placed  it, 
and  to  give  some  indication  of  that  radical  and  connected 
structure  which  Nature  would  have  given  it.  Thus,  the 
Corinthian  capital  is  beautiful,  because  it  expands  under  the 
abacus  just  as  Nature  would  have  expanded  it ;  and  because  it 
looks  as  if  the  leaves  had  one  root,  though  that  root  is  unseen. 
And  the  flamboyant  leaf-mouldings  are  beautiful,  because  they 
nestle  and  run  up  the  hollows,  and  fill  the  angles,  and  clasp 
the  shafts  which  natural  leaves  would  have  delighted  to  fill 
and  to  clasp.  They  are  no  mere  cast  of  natural  leaves :  they  aro 
counted,  orderly,  and  architectural ;  but  they  are  naturally, 
and  therefore  beautifully  placed. 

What  is  the  right  place  for  architectural  ornament  ?  What 
is  the  peculiar  treatment  of  ornament  which  renders  it  archi- 
tectural ? 

Suppose  that  in  time  of  serious  occupation,  of  stern  business, 
a  companion  should  repeat  in  our  ears,  continually,  some 
favorite  passage  of  poetry,  over  and  over  again  all  day  long. 
We  should  not  only  soon  be  utterly  sick  and  weary  of  the 
pourd  of  it,  but  that  sound  would,  at  the  end  of  the  day, 
have  so  sunk  into  the  habit  of  the  ear  that  the  entire  meaning 


THE   LAMP    OF    BEAUTY.  138 

of  the  passage  would  be  dead  to  us,  and  it  would  ever  thence- 
forward require  some  effort  to  fix  and  recover  it.  The  music 
of  it  would  not  meanwhile  have  aided  the  business  in  hand, 
while  its  own  delightfulness  would  thenceforward  be  in  a  mea- 
sure destroyed.  It  is  the  same  with  every  other  form  of 
definite  thought.  If  you  violently  press  its  expression  to  the 
senses,  at  times  when  the  mind  is  otherwise  engaged,  that 
expression  will  be  ineffective  at  the  time,  and  will  have  Ita 
sharpness  and  clearness  destroyed  for  ever. 

Apply  this  to  expressions  of  thought  received  by  the  eye. 
Remember  that  the  eye  is  at  your  mercy  more  than  the  ear. 
"  The  eye  it  cannot  choose  but  see."  Now,  if  you*  present 
lovely  forms  to  it  when  it  cannot  call  the  mind  to  help  it  in 
its  work,  and  among  objects  of  vulgar  use  and  unhappy 
position,  you  will  neither  please  the  eye  nor  elevate  the 
vulgar  object.  But  you  will  fill  and  weary  the  eye  with  the 
beautiful  form.  It  will  never  be  of  much  use  to  you  any  more 
— its  freshness  and  purity  are  gone. 

Hence  then  a  general  law,  of  singular  importance  in  the 
present  day,  a  law  of  common  sense — not  to  decorate  things 
belonging  to  purposes  of  active  and  occupied  life.  Wher- 
ever you  can  rest,  there  decorate  ;  where  rest  is  forbidden,  so 
is  beauty.  You  must  not  mix  ornament  with  business,  any 
more  than  you  may  mix  play.  "Work  first,  and  then  rest. 
Work  first,  and  then  gaze,  but  do  not  use  golden  ploughshares, 
nor  bind  ledgers  in  enamel.  Do  not  thrash  with  sculptured 
flails  ;  nor  put  bas-reliefs  on  millstones. 

The  most  familiar  position  of  Greek  mouldings  is  in  these 
days  on  shop-fronts — ornaments  which  were  invented  to  adorn 
temples  and  beautify  kings'  palaces.  There  is  not  the  small- 
est advantage  in  them  where  they  are.  Absolutely  valueless 
— utterly  without  the  power  of  giving  pleasure,  they  only 
satiate  the  eye,  and  vulgarise  their  own  forms.  It  is  curio  is, 


134  ABCinTECTURE. 

and  it  says  little  foi  our  national  probity  on  the  one  hand,  or 
prudence  on  the  other,  to  see  the  whole  system  of  our  street 
decoration  based  on  the  idea  that  people  must  be  baited  to  a 
shop  as  moths  are  to  a  candle. 

Must  not  beauty,  then,  it  will  be  asked,  be  sought  for  in  the 
forms  which  we  associate  with  our  every-day  life  ?  Yes,  if  you 
do  it  consistently,  and  in  places  where  it  can  be  calmly  seen 
Put  it  in  the  drawing-room,  not  into  the  workshop  ;  put  it  upon 
domestic  furniture,  not  upon  tools  of  handicraft.  All  men 
have  sense  of  what  is  right  in  this  manner,  if  they  would  only 
use  and  apply  that  sense. 

There  is  no  subject  of  street  ornament  so  wisely  chosen  as 
the  fountain,  where  it  is  a  fountain  of  use  ;  for  it  is  just  there 
that  perhaps  the  happiest  pause  takes  place  in  the  labor  of  the 
Jay,  when  the  pitcher  is  rested  on  the  edge  of  it,  and  the 
breath  of  the  bearer  is  drawn  deeply,  and  the  hair  swept  from 
iht  forehead,  and  the  uprightness  of  the  form  declined  against 
the  marble  ledge,  and  the  sound  of  the  kind  word  or  light 
laugh  mixes  with  the  trickling  of  the  falling  water,  heard 
shriller  and  shriller  as  the  pitcher  tills.  What  pause  is  so  sweet 
as  that — so  ftill  of  the  depth  of  ancient  days,  so  softened  with 
the  calm  of  pastoral  solitude? 

Proportion  and  Abstraction  are  the  two  especial  marks 
of  architectural  design  as  distinguished  from  all  other. 

Proportions  are  as  infinite  as  possible  airs  in  music  ;  and  it 
is  just  as  rational  an  attempt  to  teach  a  young  architect  how 
to  proportion  truly  and  well  by  calculating  for  him  the  pro- 
portions of  fine  works,  as  it  would  be  to  teach  him  to  com- 
pose melodies  by  calculating  the  mathematical  relations  of  the 
notes  in  Beethoven's  Adelaide  or  Mozart's  Requiem.  The 
man  who  has  eye  and  intellect  will  invent  bonutiful  pro- 
portions,  and  cannot  help  it ;  but  he  oan  no  more  tell  in  how 
to  do  it  than  Wordsworth  could  tell  "s  how  to  write 


THE   LAMP    OF    BEAUTY.  135 

a  sonnet,  or  than  Scott  could  have  told  us  how  to  plan  a 
romance. 

There  is  no  proportion  between  equal  things;  they  can 
have  symmetry  only,  and  symmetry  without  proportion  is  not 
composition.  To  compose  is  to  arrange  unequal  things,  and 
the  first  thing  to  be  done  in  beginning  a  composition  is  to 
determine  which  is  to  be  the  principal  thing.  "  Have  one 
large  thing  and  several  smaller  things,  or  one  principal  thing 
and  several  inferior  things,  and  bind  them  well  together." 

Proportion  is  between  three  terms  at  least. 

All  art  is  abstract  in  its  beginnings ;  that  is  to  say,  it  ex- 
presses only  a  small  number  of  the  qualities  of  the  thing 
represented. 

The  form  of  a  tree  on  the  Ninevite  sculptures  is  much  like 
that  which,  some  twenty  years  ago,  was  familiar  upon  sam- 
plers. There  is  a  resemblance  between  the  work  of  a  great 
nation,  in  this  phase,  and  the  work  of  childhood  and  ignorance. 

In  the  next  stage  of  art  there  is  a  condition  of  strength,  in 
which  the  abstraction  which  was  begun  in  incapability  is  con- 
tinued in  free  will. 

"  Greater  completion  marks  the  progress  of  art,  absolute 
completion  usually  its  decline." 

It  is  well  that  the  young  architect  should  be  taught  to  think 
of  imitative  ornament  as  of  the  extreme  grace  of  language  ; 
not  to  be  regarded  at  first,  not  to  be  obtained  at  the  cost  of 
purpose,  meaning,  force,  or  conciseness,  yet,  indeed,  a  per- 
fection— the  least  of  all  perfections,  and  yet  the  crowning  one 
of  all, — one,  which  by  itself,  and  regarded  in  itself,  is  an 
architectural  coxcombry,  but  yet  is  the  sign  of  the  most 
highly-trained  mind  and  power  when  it  is  associated  with 
others.  It  is  a  safe  manner  to  design  all  things  at  first  in 
severe  abstraction,  and  to  be  prepared,  if  need  were,  to  carry 


136  AECI1ITECTURE. 

them  out  in  tlat  form;  then  to  mark  the  parts  \vhere  Iii^h 
finish  would  be  admissible. 

I  think  the  colors  of  architecture  should  be  those  of  natural 
stones,  partly  because  more  durable,  but  also  because  more 
perfect  and  graceful. 

I  do  not  feel  able  to  speak  with  any  confidence  respecting 
the  touching  of  sculpture  with  color.  I  would  only  note  one 
point,  that  sculpture  is  the  representation  of  an  idea,  while; 
architecture  is  itself  a  real  thing.  The  idea  may,  as  I  think, 
be  left  colorless,  and  colored  by  the  beholder's  mind ;  but  a 
reality  ought  to  have  reality  hi  all  its  attributes ;  its  color 
should  be  as  fixed  as  its  form. 

The  following  list  of  noble  characteristics  occurs  more 
or  less  in  different  buildings,  some  in  one  and  some  in 
another : — 

1.  Projection  towards  the  top.  2.  Breadth  of  flat  surface. 
3.  Square  compartments  of  that  surface.  4.  Varied  and  vi>i- 
ble  masonry.  5.  Vigorous  depth  of  shadow,  exhibited  espe- 
cially by  pierced  traceries.  6.  Varied  proportion  in  ascent. 
7.  Lateral  symmetry.  8.  Sculpture  most  delicate  at  the  base. 
9.  Enriched  quantity  of  ornament  at  the  top.  10.  Sculpture 
abstract  in  inferior  ornaments  and  mouldings,  complete  in 
animal  forms,  both  to  be  executed  in  white  marble.  11. 
Vivid  color  introduced  in  flat  geometrical  patterns,  and 
obtained  by  the  use  of  naturally  colored  stones. 

These  characteristics  all  together,  and  in  their  highest  pos- 
sible relative  degrees,  exist,  as  far  as  I  know, only  in  one  build- 
ing in  the  world,  the  Campanile  of  Giotto  at  Florence.  I 
remember  well  how,  when  a  boy,  I  used  to  despise  that  Cam- 
panile, and  think  it  meanly  smooth  and  finished.  But  I  have 
since  lived  beside  it  many  a  day,  and  looked  out  upon  it  from 
my  windows  by  sun-light  and  moonlight,  and  I  shall  not  soon 
forget  how  profound  and  gloomy  appeared  to  me  the  savage- 


THE   LAMP    OF   BEAUTY.  137 

ness  of  the  Northern  Gothic,  when  I  afterwards  stood, 
for  the  first  time,  beneath  the  front  of  Salisbury  Cathe- 
dral. 

The  contrast  is  indeed  strange,  if  it  could  be  quickly  felt,  be- 
tween the  rising  of  those  grey  walls  out  of  their  quiet  swarded 
epace,  like  dark  and  barren  rocks  out  of  a  green  lake,  with 
their  rude,  mouldering,  rough-grained  shafts,  and  triple  lights, 
without  tracery  or  other  ornament  than  the  martins'  nests  in 
the  height  of  them,  and  that  bright,  smooth,  sunny  surface  of 
glowing  jasper,  those  spiral  shafts  and  fairy  traceries,  so 
white,  so  faint,  so  crystalline,  that  their  slight  shapes  are 
hardly  traced  in  darkness  on  the  pallor  of  the  Eastern  sky, 
that  serene  height  of  mountain  alabaster,  colored  like  a 
morning  cloud,  and  chased  like  a  sea-shell.  And  if  this  be, 
as  I  believe  it,  the  model  and  mirror  of  perfect  architecture,  is 
there  not  something  to  be  learned  by  looking  back  to  the 
early  life  of  him  who  raised  it  ? 

I  said  that  the  Power  of  the  human  mind  had  its  growth  in 
the  Wilderness  ;  much  more  must  the  love  and  the  conception 
of  that  beauty,  whose  every  line  and  hue  we  have  seen  to  be, 
at  the  best,  a  faded  image  of  God's  daily  work,  and  an  arrested 
ray  of  some  star  of  creation,  be  given  chiefly  in  the  places 
which  he  has  gladdened  by  planting  there  the  fir  tree  and  the 
pine.  Not  within  the  walls  of  Florence,  but  among  the  far- 
away fields  of  her  lilies,  was  the  child  trained  who  was  to  raise 
that  headstone  of  Beauty  above  the  towers  of  watch  and  war. 
J  lemember  all  that  he  became ;  count  the  sacred  thoughts 
with  which  he  filled  the  heart  of  Italy  ;  ask  those  who  followed 
him  what  they  learned  at  his  feet ;  and  when  you  have  num- 
bered his  labors,  and  received  their  testimony,  if  it  seem  to 
you  that  God  had  verily  poured  out  upon  this  His  servant  no 
common  nor  restrained  portion  of  His  Spirit,  and  that  he  was 
indeed  a  king  among  the  children  of  men,  remember  also  that 


138  ARCHITECTURE. 

the  legend  upon  his  crown  was  that  of  David's1 — 'I  took 
thee  from  the  sheepcote,  and  from  following  the  cheep." 


V. — THE   LAMP    OF   LIFE. 

The  creations  of  Architecture,  being  not  essentially  com- 
posed of  things  pleasant  in  themselves,  as  music  of  sweet 
sounds,  or  painting  of  fair  colors,  but  of  inert  substance, 
depend  for  their  dignity  and  pleasurableness,  in  the  utmost 
degree,  upon  the  vivid  expression  of  the  intellectual  life 
which  has  been  concerned  in  their  production. 

It  is  no  sign  of  deadness  in  a  present  art  that  it  borrows  or 
imitates,  but  only  if  it  borrows  without  paying  interest,  or  if 
it  imitates  without  choice.  The  art  of  a  great  nation,  which 
is  developed  without  any  acquaintance  with  nobler  examples 
than  its  own  early  efforts  furnish,  exhibits  always  the  most 
consistent  and  comprehensible  growth,  and  perhaps  is  re- 
garded usually  as  peculiarly  venerable  in  its  self-origination. 
But  there  is  something  to  my  mind  more  majestic  yet  in  the 
life  of  an  architecture  like  that  of  the  Lombards,  rude  and 
infantine  in  itself,  and  surrounded  by  fragments  of  a  nobler 
art  of  which  it  is  quick  in  admiration,  and  ready  in  imitation, 
and  yet  so  strong  in  its  own  new  instincts  that  it  re-constructs 
and  re-arranges  every  fragment  that  it  copies  or  borrows  into 
harmony  wTith  its  own  thoughts, — a  harmony  at  first  disjointed 
and  awkward,  but  completed  in  the  end,  and  fused  into  per- 
fect organization ;  all  the  borrowed  elements  being  subordi- 
nated to  its  own  primal,  unchanged  life. 

Two  very  extinguishing  characters  of  vital  imitation  are, 
its  Frankness  and  its  Audacity;  its  Frankness  is  especially 


THE   LAMP    OF   LITE.  /1 39 

singular ;  there  is  never  any  effort  to  conceal  the  degree  of 
the  sources  of  its  borrowing.  Raffaelle  carries  off  a  whole 
figure  from  Masaccio,  or  borrows  an  entire  composition 
from  Perugino,  with  as  much  tranquillity  and  simplicity 
of  innocence  as  a  young  Spartan  pickpocket  ;  and  the 
architect  of  a  Romanesque  basilica  gathered  his  columns 
and  his  capitals  where  he  could  find  them,  as  an  ant  picky 
up  sticks. 

Frankness,  however,  is  in  itself  no  excuse  for  repetition,  nor 
Audacity  for  innovation,  when  the  one  is  indolent  and  the 
other  unwise. 

I  believe  the  right  question  to  ask,  respecting  ah1  ornament, 
is  simply  this :  Was  it  done  with  enjoyment — was  the  carver 
happy  while  he  was  about  it  ?  It  may  be  the  hardest  work 
possible,  and  the  harder  because  so  much  pleasure  was  taken 
in  it ;  but  it  must  have  been  happy  too  or  it  will  not  be  living. 

We  have  certain  work  to  do  for  our  bread,  and  that  is  to 
be  done  strenuously ;  other  work  to  do  for  our  delight,  and 
that  is  to  be  done  heartily ;  neither  is  to  be  done  by  halves  or 
shifts,  but  with  a  will ;  and  what  is  not  worth  this  effort  is  not 
to  be  done  at  all.  There  is  dreaming  enough,  and  earthiness 
enough,  and  sensuality  enough  in  human  existence,  without 
our  turning  the  few  glowing  moments  of  it  into  mechanism ; 
and  since  our  life  must  at  the  best  be  but  a  vapor  that  appears 
but  for  a  little  time  and  then  vanishes  away,  let  it  at  least 
appear  as  a  cloud  in  the  height  of  Heaven,  not  as  the  thick 
darkness  that  broods  over  the  blast  of  the  Furnace,  and  rolling 
of  the  Wheel. 


110 


VI. — THE  LAMP   OF   MEMORY. 

As  the  centralisation  and  protectress  of  Memory  and  Asso- 
ciation, Architecture  is  to  be  regarded  by  us  with  the  most 
serious  thought.  We  may  live  without  her,  and  worship  witli- 
oat  her,  but  we  cannot  remember  without  her.  How  cold  is 
all  history,  how  lifeless  all  imagery,  compared  to  that  Avhu-h 
the  living  nation  writes,  and  the  uncorrupted  marble  bears ! 
How  many  pages  of  doubtful  record  might  we  not  often 
spare,  for  a  few  stones  left  one  upon  another  ?  The  ambition 
of  the  old  Babel-builders  was  well  directed  for  this  world. 
There  are  but  two  strong  conquerors  of  the  forgetfulness  of 
men,  Poetry  and  Architecture ;  and  the  latter  in  some  sort 
includes  the  former,  and  is  mightier  in  its  reality.  It  is  well 
to  have,  not  only  what  men  have  thought  and  felt,  but  what 
their  hands  have  handled  and  their  strength  wrought,  and 
their  eyes  beheld,  all  the  days  of  their  life.  The  age  of  Homer 
is  surrounded  with  darkness,  his  very  personality  with  doubt. 
Not  so  that  of  Pericles ;  and  the  day  is  coming  when  we  shall 
confess  we  have  learned  more  of  Greece  out  of  the  crumbled* 
fragments  of  her  sculpture  than  even  from  her  sweet  singers 
or  soldier  historians.  And  if  indeed  there  be  any  profit  in 
our  knowledge  of  the  past,  or  any  joy  in  the  thought  of  being 
remembered  hereafter,  which  can  give  strength  to  present 
exertion,  or  patience  to  present  endurance,  there  are  two 
duties  respecting  national  Architecture  whose  importance  it  ia 
impossible  to  overrate ;  the  first  to  render  the  Architecture 
of  the  day  historical ;  and  the  second,  to  preserve,  as  the  most 
precious  of  inheritances,  that  of  past  ages.  It  is  ha  becoming 
memorial  or  monumental  that  a  true  perfection  is  attained  by 
civil  and  domestic  buildings. 

As  regards  domestic  b-iildings,  there  must  always  be  a  cer- 


THE   LAMP    OF    MEMORY.  141 

tain  limitation  to  views  of  this  kind  in  the  power  as  well  as  in 
the  hearts  of  men ;  still  I  cannot  but  think  it  an  evil  sign  of  a 
people  when  their  houses  are  built  to  last  but  one  generation 
only  There  is  a  sanctity  in  a  good  man's  house  which  cannot 
be  renewed  in  every  tenement  that  rises  on  its  ruins ;  and  I 
believe  that  good  men  would  generally  feel  this ;  and  that 
having  spent  their  lives  happily  and  honorably,  they  would  be 
grieved  at  the  close  of  them  to  think  that  the  place  of  their 
earthly  abode,  which-  had  seen,  and  seemed  almost  to  sympa- 
thise in  all  their  honor,  their  gladness,  or  their  suffering, — • 
that  this,  with  all  the  record  it  bare  of  them,  and  all  of  mate- 
rial things  that  they  had  loved  and  ruled  over,  and  set  the 
stamp  of  themselves  upon,  was  to  be  swept  away,  as  soon  as 
there  was  room  for  them  made  in  the  grave  ;  that  no  respect- 
was  to  be  shown  to  it,  no  affection  felt  for  it,  no  good  to  be 
drawn  from  it  by  their  children  ;  that  though  there  was  a 
monument  in  the  church,  there  was  no  warm  monument  in 
the  hearth  and  house  to  them  ;  that  all  that  they  ever  trea- 
sured was  despised,  and  the  places  that  had  sheltered  them 
were  dragged  down  to  the  dust.  I  say  that  a  good  man 
would  fear  this ;  and  that,  far  more,  a  good  son,  a  noble 
descendant,  would  fear  doing  it  to  his  father's  house.  If  men 
lived  like  men  indeed,  their  houses  would  be  temples — which 
we  should  hardly  dare  to  injure,  and  in  which  it  would  make 
us  holy  to  be  permitted  to  live ;  and  there  must  be  a  strange 
dissolution  of  natural  affection,  a  strange  unthankfulness  for 
all  that  homes  have  given  and  parents  taught,  a  strange  con- 
sciousness that  we  have  been  unfaithful  to  our  fathers'  honor, 
or  that  our  own  lives  are  not  such  as  would  make  our  dwell- 
ings sacred  to  our  children,  when  each  man  would  fain  build 
to  himself,  and  build  for  the  little  revolution  of  his  own  life 
only. 

When  men  do  not  love  their  hearths,  nor  reverence  their 


142  ABCHITECTURE. 

thresholds,  it  is  a  sign  that  they  have  dishonored  bolh.  Our 
God  is  a  household  God,  as  well  as  a  heavenly  one ;  He  haa 
an  altar  in  every  man's  dwelling ;  let  men  look  to  it  when  they 
rend  it  lightly,  and  pour  out  its  ashes. 

It  would  be  better  if,  hi  every  possible  instance,  men  built 
their  own  houses  on  a  scale  commensurate  rather  with  their 
condition  at  the  commencement,  than  their  attainments  at  the 
termination  of  their  worldly  career ;  and  built  them  t.o  stand 
as  long  as  human  work,  at  its  strongest,  can  be  hoped  to  stand, 
recording  to  their  children  what  they  have  been,  and  from 
what,  if  so  it  had  been  permitted  them,  they  had  risen. 

I  would  have,  then,  our  ordinary  dwelling-houses  built  tc 
last,  and  built  to  be  lovely ;  as  rich  and  full  of  pleasantness  as 
may  be,  within  and  without,  and  with  such  differences  aa 
might  suit  and  express  each  man's  character  and  occupationv 
and  partly  his  history. 

In  public  buildings  the  historical  purpose  should  be  still 
more  definite.  Better  the  rudest  work  that  tells  a  story  or 
records  a  fact,  than  the  richest  without  meaning.  There 
should  not  be  a  single  ornament  put  upon  great  civic  build- 
ings, without  some  intellectual  intention.  It  is  one  of  the 
advantages  of  gothic  architecture,  that  it  admits  of  a  rich- 
ness of  record  altogether  unlimited. 

Every  human  action  gains  in  honor,  in  grace,  in  all  true 
magnificence,  by  its  regard  to  things  that  are  to  come.  It 
is  the  far  sight,  the  quiet  and  confident  patience,  that, 
above  all  other  attributes,  separate  man  from  man,  and  near 
him  to  his  Maker;  and  there  is  no  iction  nor  art,  whose 
majesty  we  may  no.t  measure  by  this  test.  Therefore,  when 
\ve  build,  let  us  think  that  we  build  (public  edifices)  for  ever 
Let  it  not  be  for  present  delight,  nor  for  present  use  alone , 
let  it  be  such  work  as  our  descendants  will  thank  us  for,  and 
let  us  think,  as  we  lav  stone  on  stone,  that  a  time  is  to  come 


THE   LAMP    OF    OBEDIEXCE.  143 

when  those  stones  will  be  held  sacred  because  our  hands  have 
touched  them,  and  that  men  will  say  as  they  look  upon  the 
labor  and  wrought  substance  of  them,  "  See !  this  our  fathers 
did  for  us."  For,  indeed,  the  greatest  glory  of  a  building  is 
not  in  its  stones,  or  in  its  gold.  Its  glory  is  in  its  age,  and 
in  that  deep  sense  of  voicefulness,  of  stern  watching,  of  mys- 
terious sympathy,  nay,  even  of  approval  or  condemnation, 
which  we  feel  in  walls  that  have  long  been  .washed  by  the 
passing  waves  of  humanity. 


VII. — THE   LAMP    OF    OBEDIENCE. 

It  has  been  my  endeavor  to  show  how  every  form  of  noble 
architecture  is  in  some  sort  the  embodiment  of  the  Polity, 
Life,  History,  and  Religious  Faith  of  nations.  Once  or  twice 
in  doing  this,  I  have  named  a  principle  to  which  I  would  now 
assign  a  definite  place  among  those  which  direct  that  embodi- 
ment ; — the  crowning  grace  of  all  the  rest :  that  principle  to 
which  Polity  owes  its  stability,  Life  its  happiness,  Faith  its 
acceptance,  Creation  its  continuance,-— Obedience. 

How  false  is  the  conception,  how  frantic  the  pursuit,  of 
that  treacherous  phantom  which  men  call  Liberty !  There  is 
no  such  thing  in  the  universe.  There  can  never  be.  The 
si  ars  have  it  not ;  the  earth  has  it  not ;  the  sea  has  it  not ;  and 
we  men  have  the  mockery  and  semblance  of  it  only  for  our 
heaviest  punishment. 

The  enthusiast  would  reply  that  by  Liberty  he  meant  the 
Law  of  Liberty.  Then  why  use  the  single  and  misunderstood 
word  ?  If  by  liberty  you  mean  chastisement  of  the  passions, 


144  ARCHITECTUEB. 

discipline  of  the  intellect,  subjection  of  the  will ;  if  you  mean 
the  fear  of  inflicting,  the  shame  of  committing  a  wrong;  if  you 
mean  respect  for  all  who  are  in  authority,  and  consideration 
for  all  who  are  in  dependence ;  veneration  for  the  good,  mercy 
to  the  evil,  sympathy  with  the  weak; — if  you  mean,  in 
a  word,  that  service  which  is  defined  in  the  liturgy  of  the 
English  church  to  be  "  perfect  Freedom,"  why  do  you  name 
this  by  the  same  word  by  which  the  luxurious  mean  license, 
and  the  reckless  mean  change; — by  which  the  rogue  means 
rapine,  and  the  fool,  equality  ;  by  which  the  proud  mean  anar- 
chy, and  the  malignant  mean  violence  ?  Call  it  by  any  name 
rather  than  this,  but  its  best  and  truest  test  is,  Obedience. 

Obedience  is,  indeed,  founded  on  a  kind  of  freedom,  else  it 
would  become  mere  subjugation,  but  that  freedom  is  only 
granted  that  obedience  may  be  more  perfect. 

If  there  be  any  one  condition  which,  in  watching  the  pro- 
gress of  Architecture,  we  see  distinct  and  general,  it  is  this ; 
that  the  Architecture  of  a  nation  is  great  only  when  it  is  as 
universal  and  as  established  as  its  language ;  and  when  pro- 
vincial differences  of  style  are  nothing  more  than  so  many 
dialects.  Other  necessities  are  matters  of  doubt:  nations 
have  been  alike  successful  in  their  architecture  in  times  of 
poverty  and  of  wealth ;  in  times  of  war  and  of  peace  ;  in  times 
of  barbarism  and  of  refinement ;  under  governments  the  most 
liberal  or  the  most  arbitrary  ;  but  this  one  condition  has  been 
constant,  this  one  requirement  clear  in  all  places  and  at  all 
times,  that  the  work  shall  be  that  of  a  school,  that  no  indivi- 
dual caprice  shall  dispense  with,  or  materially  vary,  accepted 
types  and  customary  decorations ;  and  that  from  the  cottage 
to  the  palace,  and  from  the  chapel  to  the  basilica,  and  from 
the  garden  fence  to  the  fortress  wall,  every  member  and 
feature  of  the  architecture  of  the  nation  shall  be  as  commonly 
current,  as  frankly  accepted,  as  its  language  or  its  coin 


THE    LAMP    OF    OBED1EXCE.  145 

A  day  never  passes  without  our  hearing  our  English  archi 
tects  called  upon  to  be  original,  and  to  invent  a  new  style: 
About  as  sensible  and  necessary  an  exhortation  as  to  ask  a  man 
who  has  never  had  rags  on  his  back  to  keep  out  cold,  to  invent 
a  new  mode  of  cutting  a  coat.  Give  him  a  whole  coat  first 
ard  let  him  concern  himself  about  the  fashion  of  it  afterwards. 
We  want  no  neic  style  of  architecture.  Who  wants  a  new  style 
of  painting  or  sculpture  ?  But  we  want  some  style.  It  is  of 
marvellously  little  importance,  if  we  have  a  code  of  laws  and 
they  be  good  laws,  whether  they  be  new  or  old,  foreign  or 
native,  Roman  or  Saxon,  or  Norman  or  English  laws.  But 
it  is  of  considerably  importance  that  we  should  have  a  code 
of  laws  of  one  kind  or  another,  and  that  code  accepted  and 
enforced  from  one  side  of  the  island  to  the  other,  and  not  one 
law  made  grow  id  of  judgment  at  York  and  another  jit 
Exeter. 

There  seems  to  me  to  be  a  wonderful  misunderstanding 
among  the  majority  of  architects  at  the  present  day,  as  to  the 
v:ry  nature  and  meaning  of  Originality,  and  of  all  wherein  it 
consists.  Originality  in  expression  does  not  depend  on  inven 
tion  of  new  words ;  nor  originality  in  poetry  on  invention  of 
new  measures;  nor,  in  painting,  on  invention  of  new  colors,  or 
new  modes  of  using  them.  The  chords  of  music,  the  harmonies 
of  color,  the  general  principles  of  the  arrangement  of  sculptural 
masses,  have  been  determined  long  ago,  and,  in  all  probability, 
cannot  be  added  to  any  more  than  they  can  be  altered. 

A  man  who  has  the  gift,  will  take  up  any  style  that  is  going, 
the  style  of  his  day,  and  will  work  in  that,  and  be  great  in 
that,  and  make  everything  that  he  does  in  it  look  as  fresh  as 
if  every  thought  of  it  had  just  come  down  from  heaven.  I  do 
not  say  that  he  will  not  take  liberties  with  his  materials,  or 
with  his  rules  I  do  not  say  that  strange  changes  will  not 
sometimes  be  wrought  by  his  efforts,  or  his  fancies,  in  both 


146  ARCHITECTURE. 

But  those  changes  will  be  instructive,  natural,  facile,  though 
sometimes  marvellous ;  and  those  liberties  will  be  like  trie 
liberties  that  a  great  speaker  takes  witli  the  language,  not  a 
defiance  of  its  rules  for  the  sake  of  singularity,  but  inevitable, 
uncalculated,  and  brilliant  consequences  of  an  effort  to  express 
what  the  language,  without  such  infraction,  could  not. 

I  know  too  well  the  undue  importance  which  the  study  that 
every  man  follows  must  assume  in  his  own  eyes,  to  trust  my 
own  impressions  of  the  dignity  of  that  of  Architecture  ;  and 
yet  I  think  I  cannot  be  utterly  mistaken  in  regarding  it  as  at 
least  useful  in  the  sense  of  a  National  employment.  I  am  con- 
firmed in  this  impression  by  what  I  see  passing  among  the 
states  of  Europe  at  this  instant.  All  the  horror,  distress,  and 
tumult  which  oppress  the  foreign  nations^  are  traceable, 
among  the  other  secondary  causes  through  which  God  is 
working  out  His  will  upon  them,  to  the  simple  one  of  their  not 
having  enough  to  do.  I  am  not  blind  to  the  distress  among 
their  operatives ;  nor  do  I  deny  the  nearer  and  visibly  active 
causes  of  the  movement :  the  recklessness  of  villany  in  the 
leaders  of  revolt,  the  absence  of  common  moral  principle 
in  the  upper  classes,  and  of  common  courage  and  honesty  in 
the  heads  of  governments.  But  these  causes  are  ultimately 
traceable  to  a  deeper  and  simpler  one;  the  recklessness  of  the 
demagogue,  the  immorality  of  the  middle  class,  and  the  effemi- 
nacy and  treachery  of  the  noble,  are  traceable  in  all  these 
nations  to  the  commonest  and  most  fruitful  cause  of  calamity 
in  households — Idleness. 

We  think  too  much  in  our  benevolent  efforts,  more  multi- 
plied and  more  vain  day  by  day,  of  bettering  men  by  giving 
them  advice  and  instruction.  There  are  few  who  will  take 
either ;  the  chief  thing  they  need  is  occupation.  I  do  not 
mean  \rork  in  the  sense  of  bread — I  mean  work  in  the  sense 
of  mental  interest  ;  for  those  who  either  are  placed  above  thf>. 


THE   LAMP    OF    OBEDIEXCE.  14? 

'necessity  of  labor  for  their  bread,  or  who  will  not  work 
although  they  should. 

There  arc  multitudes  of  idle  semi-gentlemen  who  ought  to 
be  shoemakers  and  carpenters.  It  is  of  no  use  to  tell  them 
they  are  fools,  and  that  they  will  only  make  themselves  misera- 
ble in  the  end  as  well  as  others  ;  if  they  have  nothing  else  to 
do,  they  will  do  mischief;  and  the  man  who  will  not  work,  and 
has  no  means  of  intellectual  pleasure,  is  as  sure  to  become  an 
instrument  of  evil  as  if  he  had  sold  himself  bodily  to  Satan. 

It  would  be  wise  to  consider  whether  the  forms  of  employ- 
ment which  we  chiefly  adopt  or  promote,  are  as  well  calcu- 
lated as  they  might  be  to  improve  and  elevate  us. 

I  have  paused,  not  once  nor  twice,  as  I  wrote,  and  often 
have  checked  the  course  of  what  might  otherwise  have  been 
importunate  persuasion,  as  the  thought  has  crossed  me,  how 
soon  all  Architecture  may  be  vain,  except  that  which  is  "  not 
made  with  hands." 

All  European  architecture,  bad  and  good,  old  and  new,  is 
derived  from  Greece  through  Rome,  and  colored  and  per- 
fected from  the  East.  The  history  of  Architecture  is  nothing 
but  the  tracing  of  the  various  modes  and  directions  of  this 
derivation.  The  Doric  and  the  Corinthian  orders  are  the 
roots,  the  one  of  all  Romanesque,  massy-capitaled  buildings — 
Norman,  Lombard,  Byzantine,  and  what  else  you  can  name 
of  the  kind ;  and  the  Corinthian  of  all  Gothic,  early-English, 
French,  German,  and  Tuscan.  Now  observe:  those  old  Greeks 
gave  the  shaft:  Rome  gave  the  arch;  the  Arabs  pointed  and 
foliated  the  arch.  The  shaft  and  arch,  the  frame-work  and 
strength  of  architecture,  are  from  the  race  of  Japheth :  the 
spirituality  and  sanctity  of  it  from  Ismael,  Abraham,  and  Shcic. 

I  have  said  that  the  two  orders,  Doric  and  Corinthian,  are 
,  the  roots  of  all  European  arc-hit ecture.  You  have,  perhaps. 


148  AKCHITECTUKE. 

heard  of  five  orders :  but  there  are  only  two  real  orders ;  and 
there  never  can  be  any  more  till  doomsday.  On  one  of  these 
orders  the  ornament  is  convex:  those  are  Doric,  Norman,  and 
what  else  you  recollect  of  the  kind.  On  the  other  the  orna- 
ment is  concave ;  those  are  Corinthian,  Early  English,  Deco- 
rated, and  what  else  you  recollect  of  that  kind. 

The  work  of  the  Lombard  was  to  give  hardihood  and  sys 
tern  to  the  enervated  body  and  enfeebled  mind  of  Christendom; 
that  of  the  Arab  was  to  punish  idolatry,  and  to  proclaim  the 
spirituality  of  worship.  The  Lombard  covered  every  church 
which  he  built  with  the  sculptured  representations  of  bodily 
exercises — hunting  and  war.  The  Arab  banished  all  imagina- 
tion of  creature  form  from  his  temples,  and  proclaimed  from  their 
minarets,  "There  is  no  god  but  God."  Opposite  in  their  cha 
racter  and  mission,  alike  in  their  magnificence  of  energy,  they 
came  from  the  North  and  from  the  South,  the  glacier  torrent  and 
the  lava  stream ;  they  met  and  contended  over  the  wreck  of  the 
Roman  empire;  and  the  very  centre  of  the  struggle,  the  point 
of  pause  of  both,  the  deadwater  of  the  opposite  eddies,  charged 
with  embayed  fragments  of  the  Roman  wreck,  is  VENICE. 

The  Ducal  Palace  of  Venice  contains  the  three  elements  in 
exactly  equal  proportions — the  Roman,  Lombard,  and  Arab. 
It  is  the  central  building  of  the  world. 

Now  Venice,  as  she  was  once  the  most  religious,  was  in  her 
fall  the  most  corrupt,  of  European  states;  and  as  she  was  in  her 
strength  the  centre  of  the  pure  currents  of  Christian  architec. 
tare,  so  she  is  hi  her  decline  the  source  of  the  Renaissance. 

Come,  then,  if  truths  such  as  these  are  worth  our  thoughts; 
come,  and  let  us  know,  before  we  enter  the  streets  of  the  Sea 
City,  whether  we  are  indeed  to  submit  ourselves  to  their  un- 
distinguished enchantment,  and  to  look  upon  the  last  changes 
which  were  wrought  on  the  lifted  forms  of  her  palaces,  as  \ve 
should  on  the  capricious  towering  of  summer  clouds  in  the 


THE   LAMP    OF    OJ5EDLENCE.  149 

sunset,  ere  they  sank  into  the  deep  of  night;  or  whether, 
rather,  we  shall  not  behold  in  the  brightness  of  their  accumu- 
lated marble,  pages  on  which  the  sentence  of  her  luxury  was 
to  be  written  until  the  waves-should  efface  it,  as  they  fulfilled 
— "  God  has  numbered  thy  kingdom,  and  finished  it." 

Since  the  first  dominion  of  men  was  asserted  over  the  ocean, 
three  thrones,  ol  mark  beyond  all  others,  have  been  set  upon 
its  sands :  the  thrones  of  Tyre,  Venice,  and  England.  Of  the 
first  of  these  great  powers  only  the  memory  remains ;  of  the 
second,  the  ruin  ;  the  third,  which  inherits  their  greatness,  if 
it  forget  their  example,  may  be  led  through  prouder  eminence 
to  less  pitied  destruction. 

The  exaltation,  the  sin,  and  the  punishment  of  Tyre,  have 
been  recorded  for  us,  in  perhaps  the  most  touching  words 
ever  uttered  by  the  Prophets  of  Israel  against  the  cities  of  the 
stranger.  But  we  read  them  as  a  lovely  song ;  and  close  our 
ears  to  the  sternness  of  their  warning ;  for  the  very  depth  of 
the  fall  of  Tyre  has  blinded  us  to  its  reality,  and  we  forget,  as 
we  watch  the  bleaching  of  the  rocks  between  the  sunshine  and 
the  sea,  that  they  were  once  "  as  in  Eden,  the  garden  of  God." 

Her  successor,  like  her  in  perfection  of  beauty,  though  less 
in  endurance  of  dominion,  is  still  left  for  our  beholding  in  the 
final  period  of  her  decline:  a  ghost  upon  the  sands  of  the  sea, 
so  weak — so  quiet, — so  bereft  of  all  but  her  loveliness,  that  we 
might  well  doubt,  as  we  watched  her  faint  reflection  in  the 
mirage  of  the  lagoon,  \vhich  was  the  City,  and  which  the  Sha~ 
flow.  A  warning  seems  to  me  to  be  uttered  by  every  one  of 
the  fust-gaining  waves,  that  beat  like  passing  bells  against 
the  stones  of  Venice. 

The  state  of  Venice  existed  thirteen  hundred  and  seventy- 
six  years.  Of  this  period  two  hundred  and  seventy-six  years 
were  passed  in  a  nominal  subjection  to  the  cities  of  old 


150  ARCHITECTURE. 

Venetia,  and  in  an  agitated  form  of  democracy.  For  six  hun- 
dred years,  during  which  the  power  of  Venice  was  continually 
on  the  increase,  her  government  was  an  elective  monarchy, 
her  king  or  Doge  possessing,  in  early  times  a,  least,  as  much 
independent  authority  as  any  other  European  sovereign ;  but 
an  authority  gradually  subjected  to  limitation,  and  shortened 
almost  daily  of  its  prerogatives,  while  it  increased  in  a  spectral 
and  incapable  magnificence.  The  final  government  of  the 
nobles,  under  the  image  of  a  king,  lasted  for  five  hundred 
years,  during  which  Venice  reaped  the  fruits  of  her  former 
energies,  consumed  them, — and  expired. 

Throughout  her  career,  the  victories  of  Venice,  and  at  many 
periods  of  it,  her  safety,  were  purchased  by  individual  heroism ; 
and  the  man  who  exalted  or  saved  her  was  sometimes  her 
king,  sometimes  a  noble,  sometimes  a  citizen. 

The  most  curious  phenomenon  in  all  Venetian  history,  is 
the  vitality  of  religion  in  private  life,  and  its  deadness  in  public 
policy.  Amidst  the  enthusiasm,  chivalry,  or  fanaticism  of  the 
other  states  of  Europe,  Venice  stands,  from  first  to  last,  like 
a  masked  statue ;  her  coldness  impenetrable,  her  exertion  only 
aroused  by  the  touch  of  a  secret  spring.  That  spring  was  her 
commercial  interest, — this  the  one  motive  of  all  her  important 
political  acts,  or  enduring  national  animosities.  She  could 
forgive  insults  to  her  honor,  but  never  rivalship  in  her  com- 
merce. She  calculated  the  glory  of  her  conquests  by  their 
value,  and  estimated  their  justice  by  their  facility. 

There  are,  therefore,  two  strange  and  solemn  lights  5n 
which  we  have  to  regard  almost  every  scene  in  the  fitfiu 
history  of  the  Rivo  Alto.  We  find,  on  the  one  hand,  a  deep 
and  constant  tone  of  individual  religion  characterizing  the 
lives  of  the  citizens  of  Venice  in  her  greatness;  we  find  this 
spirit  influencing  them  in  all  the  familiar  and  immediate  con- 
cerns of  life,  giving  a  peculiar  dignity  to  the  conduct  even  of 


THE   LAMP    OF    OBEDIEXCE.  151 

their  commercial  transactions,  and  confessed  by  them  with  a 
simplicity  of  faith  that  may  well  put  to  shame  the  hesitation 
with  which  a  man  of  the  world  at  present  admits  (even  if  it  be 
so  in  reality,)  that  religious  feeling  has  any  influence  over  the 
minor  branches  of  his  conduct.  With  the  fulness  of  this  spirit 
the  prosperity  of  the  state  is  exactly  correspondent,  and  with 
its  failure  her  decline. 

There  is  another  most  interesting  feature  in  the  policy  of 
Venice,  namely,  the  magnificent  and  successful  struggle  which 
she  maintained  against  the  temporal  authority  of  the  Church 
of  Rome. 

One  moro  circumstance  remains  to  be  noted  respecting  the 
Venetian  government,  the  singular  unity  of  the  families  com- 
posing it, — unity  far  from  sincere  or  perfect,  but  still  admirable 
when  contrasted  with  the  fiery  feuds,  the  almost  daily  revolu- 
tions, which  fill  the  annals  of  the  other  states  of  Italy.  Venice 
may  well  call  upon  us  to  note  with  reverence,  that  of  all  the 
towers  which  are  still  seen  rising,  like  a  branchless  forest,  from 
her  islands,  there  is  but  one  whose  office  was  other  than  that 
of  summoning  to  prayer,  and  that  one  was  a  watchtower  only. 

The  Venice  of  Modern  fiction  and  drama  is  a  thing  of  yes- 
terday, a  mere  efflorescence  of  decay,  a  stage-dream  which 
the  first  ray  of  daylight  must  dissipate  into  dust.  No  pri- 
soner, whose  name  is  worth  remembering,  or  whose  sor- 
row deserved  sympathy,  ever  crossed  that  "  Bridge  of 
Sighs,"  which  is  the  centre  of  the  Byronic  ideal  of  Venice ; 
no  great  Merchant  of  Venice  ever  saw  that  Rialto  under 
which  the  traveller  now  passes  with  breathless  interest :  the 
statue,  which  Byron  makes  Faliero  address  as  one  of  his  great 
ancestors,  was  erected  to  a  soldier  of  fortune  a  hundred  and 
fifty  years  after  Faliero's  death  ;  and  the  most  conspicuous 
parts  of  the  city  have  been  so  entirely  altered  in  the  course 


152  ARCHITECTURE. 

of  the  last  three  centuries,  that  if  Henry  Dandolo  01  Francis 
Foscari  could  be  summoned  from  their  tombs,  and  stcod  each 
on  the  deck  of  his  galley,  at  the  entrance  of  the  Grand  Canal, 
that  renowned  entrance,  the  painter's  favorite  subject,  the 
novelist's  favorite  scene,  where  the  water  first  narrows  by  the 
steps  of  the  church  of  La  Salute — the  mighty  Doges  would 
not  know  in  what  spot  of  the  world  they  stood,  would  lite- 
rally not  recognise  one  stone  of  the  great  city,  for  whose  sake 
and  by  whose  ingratitude  their  grey  hairs  had  been  brought 
down  with  bitterness  to  the  grave.  The  remains  of  their 
Venice  lie  hidden  behind  the  cumbrous  masses  which  were 
the  delight  of  the  nation  in  its  dotage  ;  hidden  in  many  a 
grass-grown  court,  and  silent  pathway,  and  lightless  canal, 
where  the  slow  waves  have  sapped  their  foundations  for  five 
hundred  years,  and  must  soon  prevail  over  them  for  ever.  It 
must  be  our  task  to  glean  and  gather  them  forth,  and  restore 
out  of  them  some  faint  image  of  the  lost  city ;  more  gorgeous 
a  thousand  fold,  than  that  which  now  exists,  yet  not  created 
in  the  day-dream  of  the  prince,  nor  by  the  ostentation  of  the 
noble,  but  built  by  iron  hands  and  patient  hearts,  contending 
against  the  adversity  of  nature  and  the  fury  of  man,  so  that 
its  Avonderfulness  cannot  be  grasped  by  the  indolence  of 
imagination,  but  only  after  frank  inquiry  into  the  true  nature 
of  that  wild  and  solitary  scene,  whose  restless  tide  and  trem- 
bling sands  did,  indeed,  shelter  the  birth  of  the  city,  but  long 
denied  her  dominion. 

It  is  enough  for  us  to  know  that  from  the  mouths  of  the 
Adige  to  those  of  the  Piave  there  stretches,  at  a  variable  dis- 
tance of  from  three  to  five  miles  from  the  actual  shore,  a  bank 
of  sand,  divided  into  long  islands  by  narrow  channels  of  sea. 
The  space  between  this  bank  and  the  true  shore  consists  of  the 
sedimentary  deposits  from  these  and  other  rivers,  a  great  plain 
ol  calcareous  mud,  covered,  in  the  neighborhood  of  Venice, 


THE   LAM1J    OF    OBEDIENCE.  153 

by  tlie  sea  at  high  water,  to  the  depth  in  most  places  of  a  foot 
or  a  foot  and  a  half,  and  nearly  everywhere  exposed  at  low 
tide,  but  divided  by  an  intricate  network  of  narrow  and 
winding  channels,  from  which  the  sea  never  retires.  In  some 
places,  according  to  the  run  of  the  currents,  the  land  has  risen 
into  marshy  islets,  consolidated,  some  by  art  and  some  by 
time,  into  ground  firm  enough  to  be  built  upon,  or  fruitful 
enough  to  be  cultivated ;  in  others,  on  the  contrary,  it  has  not 
readied  the  sea  level ;  so  that,  at  the  average  low  water,  shal- 
low lakelets  glitter  among  its  irregularly-exposed  fields  of  sea- 
weed. In  the  midst  of  the  largest  of  these,  increased  in 
importance  by  the  confluence  of  several  large  river  channels 
towards  one  of  the  openings  in  the  sea  bank,  the  city  of 
Venice  itself  is  built,  on  a  crowded  cluster  of  islands. 

If,  two  thousand  years  ago,  we  had  been  permitted  to  see 
the  slow  settling  of  the  slime  of  those  turbid  waters  into  the 
polluted  sea,  and  the  gaming  upon  its  deep  and  fresh  waters 
of  the  lifeless,  impassable,  unvoyageable  plain,  how  little  could 
we  have  understood  the  purpose  with  which  those  islands  were 
shaped  out  of  the  void,  and  the  torpid  waters  enclosed  with 
their  desolate  walls  of  sand  !  How  little  could  we  have  known, 
any  more  than  of  what  now  seems  to  us  most  distressful,  dark, 
and  objectless,  the  glorious  aim  which  was  then  in  the  mind 
of  Him  in  whose  hand  are  all  the  corners  of  the  earth !  how 
little  imagined  that  in  the  laws  which  were  stretching  forth 
the  gloomy  mud  of  those  fruitless  banks,  and  feeding  the 
bitter  grass  among  their  shallows,  there  was  indeed  a  prepa- 
ration, and  the  only  preparation  possible,  for  the  founding  of 
a  city  which  was  to  be  set  like  a  golden  clasp  on  the  girdle  of 
the  earth,  to  write  her  history  on  the  white  scrolls  of  the  sea- 
surges,  and  to  word  it  in  their  thunder,  and  to  gather  and  give 
forth,  in  the  world-wide  pulsation,  the  glory  of  the  West  and  of 
the  East,  from  the  burning  heart  of  her  Fortitude  and  Splendor 


154  ARCH  ITECTURE. 

The  vast  town  of  St.  Mark  seems  to  lift  itself  visibly  forth 
from  the  level  field  of  chequered  stones ;  and,  on  each  side, 
the  countless  arches  prolong  themselves  into  ranged  symmetry, 
as  if  the  rugged  and  irregular  houses  that  pressed  together 
above  us  in  the  dark  alley  had  been  struck  back  into  sudden 
obedience  and  lovely  order,  and  all  their  rude  casements  and 
broken  walls  had  been  transformed  into  arches  charged  with 
goodly  sculpture,  and  fluted  shafts  of -delicate  stone. 

And  well  may  they  fall  back,  for  beyond  those  troops  of 
ordered  arches  there  rises  a  vision  out  of  the  earth,  and  all 
the  great  square  seems  to  have  opened  from  it  in  a  kind  of 
awe,  that  we  may  see  it  far  away ; — a  multitude  of  pillars  and 
white  domes,  clustered  into  a  long  low  pyramid  of  colored 
light ;  a  treasure-heap,  it  seems,  partly  of  gold,  and  partly  of 
opal,  and  mother-of-pearl,  hollowed  beneath  into  five  great 
vaulted  porches,  ceiled  with  fair  mosaic,  and  beset  with 
BciVpture  of  alabaster,  clear  as  amber  and  delicate  as  ivory, — 
sculpture  fantastic  and  involved,  of  palm  leaves  and  lilies,  and 
grapes  and  pomegranates,  and  birds  clinging  and  fluttering 
among  the  branches,  all  twined  together  into  an  endless  net- 
work of  buds  and  plumes ;  and,  in  the  midst  of  it,  the  solemn 
form  of  angels,  sculptured,  and  robed  to  the  feet,  and  leaning 
to  each  other  across  the  gates,  their  figures  indistinct  among 
the  gleaming  of  the  golden  ground  through  the  leaves  beside 
them,  interrupted  and  dim,  like  the  morning  light  as  it  laded 
among  the  branches  of  Eden,  when  first  its  gates  were  angel- 
guarded  long  ago.  And  round  the  walls  ol  the  porches  there 
are  set  pillars  of  variegated  stones,  jasper  and  porphyry,  and 
deep-green  serpentine  spotted  with  flakes  of  snow,  and  mar- 
bles, that  half  refuse  and  half  yield  to  the  sunshine,  Cleopa- 
tra-like, "their  bluest  veins  to  kiss" — the  shadow,  as  it  steals 
back  from  them,  revealing  line  after  line  of  azure  undulation, 
as  a  receding  tide  leaves  the  waved  sand  ;  their  capitals  rich 


THE    LAMP    OF    OBEDIENCE.  155 

with  interwoven  tracery,  rooted  knots  of  herbage,  and  drift- 
ing kstfves  of  acanthus  and  vine,  and  mystical  signs,  all  begin- 
ning and  ejading  ia  the  Cross ;  and  above  them,  in  the  broad 
archivolts,  a  continuous  chain  of  language  and  of  life — angels, 
and  the  signs  of  heaven,  and  the  labors  of  men,  each  in  its 
appointed  season  upon  the  earth ;  and  above  these,  another 
range  of  glittering  pinnacles,  mixed  with  white  arches  edged 
with  scarlet  flowers, — a  confusion  of  delight,  amidst  which  the 
breasts  of  the  Greek  horses  are  seen  blazing  in  their  breadth 
of  golden  strength,  and  the  St.  Mark's  Lion,  lifted  on  a  blue 
field  covered  with  stars,  until  at  last,  as  if  in  ecstasy,  the 
crests  of  the  arches  break  into  a  marble  foam,  and  toss  them- 
selves far  into  the  blue  sky  in  Hashes  and  wreaths  of  sculptured 
spray,  as  if  the  breakers  on  the  Lido  shore  had  been  frost- 
bound  before  they  fell,  and  the  sea  nymphs  had  inlaid  them 
with  coral  and  amethyst. 

Between  that  grim  cathedral  of  England  and  this,  what  an 
interval !  There  is  a  type  of  it  in  the  very  birds  that  haunt 
them;  for,  instead  of  the  restless  crowd,  hoarse-voiced  and 
sable-winged,  drifting  on  the  black  upper  air,  the  St.  Mark's 
porches  are  full  of  doves,  that  nestle  among  the  marble 
fuliage,  and  mingle  the  soft  iridescence  of  their  living  plumes, 
changing  at  every  motion,  with  the  tints,  hardly  less  lovely, 
that  have  stood  unchanged  for  seven  hundred  years. 

And  what  eifect  has  this  splendor  on  those  who  pass  beneath 
it  ?  You  may  walk  from  sunrise  to  sunset,  to  and  fro,  before 
the  gateway  of  St.  Mark's,  and  you  will  not  see  an  eye  lifted 
to  it,  nor  a  countenance  brightened  by  it.  Priest  and  layman, 
soldier  and  civilian,  rich  and  poor,  pass  by  it  alike  regardless. 
Up  to  the  very  recesses  ol  the  porches,  the  meanest  trades- 
men of  the  city  push  their  counters.;  nay,  the  foundations  of 
its  pillars  are  themselves  the  seats — not  "  of  them  that  sell 
doves"  for  sacrifice,  but  of  the  vendors  of  toys  and  caricatures. 


156  ARCHITECTURE. 

Round  the  whole  square  in  front  of  the  church,  there  is 
almost  a  continuous  line  of  cafes,  where  the  idle  Venetians  of 
the  middle  classes  lounge,  and  read  empty  journals ;  in  its 
centre  the  Austrian  bands  play  during  the  time  of  vespers,  their 
martial  music  jarring  with  the  organ  notes, — the  march  drown- 
ing the  miserere,  and  the  sullen  crowd  thickening  around  them 
— a  crowd,  which,  if  it  had  its  will,  would  stiletto  every  soldier 
that  pipes  to  it.  And  in  the  recesses  of  the  porches,  all  day 
long,  knots  of  men  of  the  lowest  classes,  unemployed  and 
listless,  lie  basking  in  the  sun  like  lizards;  and  unregarded 
children — every  heavy  glance  of  their  young  eyes  full  of 
desperation  and  stony  depravity,  and  their  throats  hoarse 
with  cursing — gamble,  and  fight,  and  snarl,  and  sleep,  hour 
after  hour,  clashing  their  bruised  centesimi  upon  the  marble 
ledges  of  the  church  porch.  And  the  images  of  Christ  and 
his  angels  look  down  upon  it  continually. 

Let  us  enter  the  church  itself.  It  is  lost  in  still  deeper  twi- 
light, to  which  the  eye  must  be  accustomed  for  some  moments 
before  the  form  of  the  building  can  be  traced  ;  and  then  there 
opens  before  us  a  vast  cave,  hewn  out  into  the  form  of  a  cross, 
and  divided  into  shadowy  aisles  by  n  any  pillars.  Round  the 
domes  of  its  roof  the  light  enters  only  through  narrow  aper- 
tures like  large  stars ;  and  here  and  there  a  ray  or  two  from 
some  far-away  casement  wanders  into  the  darkness,  and  casts 
a  narrow  phosphoric  stream  upon  the  waves  of  marble  that 
heave  and  fall  in  a  thousand  colors  along  the  floor.  What 
else  there  is  of  light  is  from  torches,  or  silver  lamps,  burning 
carelessly  in  the  recesses  of  the  chapels ;  the  roof  sheeted 
with  gold,  and  the  polished  wall  covered  with  alabaster,  ui\c. 
at  every  curve  and  angle  some  feeble  gleaming  to  the  flumes ; 
and  the  glories  around  the  heads  of  the  sculptured  saints  Hash 
upon  us  as  we  pass  them,  and  sink  into  the  gloom.  Under 


THE    LAMP    OF    OBEDIENCE.  157 

foot  and  over  head  a  continual  succession  of  crowded  in.agery, 
one  picture  passing  into  another,  as  in  a  dream  ;  forms  beauti- 
ful and  terrible  mixed  together,  dragons  and  serpents,  and 
ravening  beasts  of  prey,  and  graceful  birds  that  in  the  midst 
of  them  drink  from  running  fountains  and  feed  from  \ases  of 
crystal ;  the  passions  and  the  pleasures  of  human  life  symbol- 
ised together,  and  the  mystery  of  its  redemption ;  for  the 
mazes  of  interwoven  lines  and  changeful  pictures  lead  always 
at  least  to  the  Cross,  lifted  and  carved  in  every  place  and 
upon  every  stone ;  sometimes  with  the  serpent  of  eternity 
wrapt  around  it,  sometimes  with  doves  against  its  arms,  and 
sweet  herbage  growing  forth  from  its  feet ;  but  conspicuous 
most  of  all  on  the  great  rood  that  crosses  the  church  before 
the  altar,  raised  in  bright  blazonry  against  the  shadow  of  the 
apse.  And  although  in  the  recesses  of  the  aisles  and  chapels, 
when  the  mist  of  the  incense  hangs  heavily,  we  may  see  con- 
tinually a  figure  traced  in  faint  lines  upon  their  marble,  a 
woman  standing  with  her  eyes  raised  to  heaven,  and  the 
inscription  above  her,  "  Mother  of  God ;"  she  is  not  here  the 
presiding  deity.  It  is  the  Cross  that  is  first  seen,  and  always 
burning  in  the  centre  of  the  temple  ;  and  the  hollow  of  its  roof 
has  the  figure  of  Christ  in  the  utmost  height  of  it,  raised  in 
power,  or  returning  in  judgment. 

The  third  cupola,  that  over  the  altar,  represents  the  witness 
of  the  Old  Testament  to  Christ,  showing  him  enthroned  in 
its  centre,  and  surrounded  by  the  patriarchs  and  prophets. 
But  this  dome  was  little  seen  by  the  people  ;  their  contempla- 
tion was  intended  to  be  chiefly  drawn  to  that  of  the  centre  of 
the  church,  and  thus  the  mind  of  the  worshipper  was  at  once 
fixed  on  the  main  groundwork  and  hope  of  Christianity, — 
"  Christ  is  risen,"  and  "  Christ  shall  come."  If  he  had  time 
to  explore  the  minor  lateral  chapels  and  cupolas,  he  could 
find  in  them  the  whole  series  of  New  Testament  history,  the 


158  ARCHITECTURE. 

events  of  the  Life  of  Christ,  and  the  apostolic  miracles  ic 
their  order,  and  finally,  the  scenery  of  the  Book  of  R 
tion  ;  but  if  he  only  entered,  as  often  the  common  people  do 
this  hour,  snatching  a  few  moments  before  beginning  the  labor 
of  the, day  to  oifer  up  an  ejaculatory  prayer,  and  advanced 
but  from  the  main  entrance  as  far  as  the  altar  screen,  ail  the 
splendor  of  the  glittering  nave  and  variegated  dome,  if  they 
smote  upon  his  heart,  as  they  might  often,  in  strange  contrast 
with  his  reed  cabin  among  the  shallows  of  the  lagoon,  smote 
upon  it  only  that  they  might  proclaim  the  two  great  mes 
sages — "  Christ  is  risen,"  and  "  Christ  shall  come."  Daily,  as 
the  white  cupolas  rose  like  wreaths  of  sea-foam  in  the  dawn, 
while  the  shadowy  campanile  and  frowning  palace  were  .still 
withdrawn  into  the  night,  they  rose  with  the  Easter  Voice 
of  Triumph, — "  Christ  is  risen ;"  and  daily,  as  they  looked 
down  upon  the  timiult  of  the  people,  deepening  and  eddying 
in  the  wide  square  that  opened  from  their  feet  to  the  sea,  they 
uttered  above  them  the  sentence  of  warning, — "  Christ  shall 
come." 

And  this  thought  may  surely  dispose  the  reader  to  look 
with  some  change  of  temper  upon  the  gorgeous  building 
and  wild  blazonry  of  that  shrine  of  St.  Mark's.  He  now  per- 
ceives that  it  was  in  the  hearts  of  the  old  Venetian  people  far 
more  than  a  place  of  worship.  It  was  at  once  a  type  of  the 
Redeemed  Church  of  God,  and  a  scroll  for  the  written  word 
of  God.  It  was  to  be  to  them  both  an  image  of  the  Bride, 
all  glorious  within,  her  clothing  of  wrought  gold  ;  and 
the  actual  Table  of  the  Law  and  the  Testimony,  written 
within  and  without.  And  whether  honored  as  the  Church  or 
as  the  Bible,  was  it  not  fitting  that  neither  the  gold  nor  the 
crystal  should  be  spared  in  :he  adornment  of  it ;  that,  a  ;  the 
symbol  of  the  Bride,  the  building  of  the  wall  thereof  should 
be  of  jasper,  and  the  foundations  of  it  garnished  with  all  IIK.U- 


THE   LAMP    OF    OBEDIEXCE.  159 

tier  of  precious  stones;  and  that,  as  the  channel  of  the  "Word,. 
that  triumphant  utterance  of  the  Psalmist  should  be  true  of 
it, — "  I  have  rejoiced  in  the  way  of  thy  testimonies,  as  much 
as  in  all  riches  ?"  And  shall  \ve  not  look  with  Changed  tern 
per  down  the  long  perspective  of  St.  Mark's  Place  toward 
the  sevenfold  gates  and  glowing  domes  of  its  temple, 
when  we  know  with  what  solemn  purpose  the  shafts  of  it 
were  lifted  above  the  pavement  of  the  populous  square  ?  Men 
met  there  from  all  countries  of  the  earth,  for  traffic  or  for 
pleasure ;  but,  above  the  crowd  swaying  for  ever  to  and  fro  in 
the  restlessness  of  avarice  or  thirst  of  delight,  was  seen  per- 
petually the  glory  of  the  temple,  attesting  to  them,  whether 
they  would  hear  or  whether  they  would  forbear,  that  there 
was  one  treasure  which  the  merchantman  might  buy  without  a 
price,  and  one  delight  better  than  all  others,  in  the  word  and 
the  statutes  of  God. 

Xot  in  the  wantonness  of  wealth,  not  in  vain  ministry  to  the 
desire  of  the  eyes  or  the  pride  of  life,  were  those  marbles 
hewn  into  transparent  strength,  and  those  arches  arrayed  in 
the  colors  of  the  iris.  There  is  a  message  written  in  the  dyes 
of  them,  that  once  was  written  in  blood ;  and  a  sound  in  the 
echoes  of  their  vaults,  that  one  day  shall  fill  the  vault  of 
heaven, — "He  shall  return,  to  do  judgment  and  justice." 
The  strength  of  Venice  was  given  her,  so  long  as  she  remem 
bered  this :  her  destruction  found  her  when  she  had  forgotten 
this  ;  and  it  found  her  irrevocably,  because  she  forgot  it  with- 
out excuse.  Xever  had  city  a  more  glorious  Bible.  .Among 
the  nations  of  the  Xorth,  a  rude  and  shadowy  sculpture  filled 
their  temples  with  confused  and  hardly  legible  imagery ;  but, 
for  her,  the  skill  and  the  treasures  of  the  East  had  gilded  every 
letter,  and  illumined  every  page,  till  the  Book-Temple  shone 
from  afar  off  like  the  star  of  the  Magi.  In  other  cities,  the 
meetings  of  the  people  were  often  in  places  withdrawn  from 


100  ARCH1TECTURK. 

religious  association,  subject  to  violence  and  to  change;  and 
on  the  grass  of  the  dangerous  rampart,  and  in  the  dust  of  the 
troubled  street,  there  were  deeds  done  and  counsels  taken, 
which,  if  we  cannot  justify,  we  may  sometimes  forgive.  l>ut 
the  sins  of  Venice,  whether  in»  her  palace  or  in  her  piazza 
were  done  with  the  Bible  at  her  right  hand.  The  walls  on 
which  its  testimony  was  written  were  separated  but  by  a  few 
inches  of  marble  from  those  which  guarded  the  secrets  of  her 
councils,  or  confined  the  victims  of  her  policy.  And  when  in 
her  last  hours  she  threw  oif  all  shame  and  all  restraint,  and 
the  great  square  of  the  city  became  filled  with  the  madness 
of  the  whole  earth,  be  it  remembered  how  much  her  sin  was 
greater,  because  it  was  done  in  the  face  of  the  House  of  God, 
burning  with  the  letters  of  His  Law.  Mountebank  and  mas- 
quer laughed  their  laugh,  and  went  their  way ;  and  a  silence 
has  followed  them,  not  unforetold;  for  amidst  them  all, 
through  century  after  century  of  gathering  vanity  and  fester 
ing  guilt,  the  white  dome  of  St.  Mark's  had  uttered  in  the 
dead  ear  of  Venice,  "Know  thou,  that  for  all  these  things, 
God  will  bring  thee  into  judgment." 

Such,  then,  was  that  first  and  fairest  Venice  which  rose  out 
of  the  barrenness  of  the  lagoon,  and  the  sorrow  of  her  people; 
a  city  of  graceful  arcades  and  gleaming  walls,  veined  with 
azure  and  warm  with  gold,  and  fretted  with  white  sculpture 
like  frost  upon  forest  branches  turned  to  marble.  And  yet, 
in  ihis  beauty  of  her  youth,  she  was  no  city  of  thoughtless 
pleasure.  There  was  still  a  sadness  of  heart  upon  her,  and  a 
depth  of  devotion,  in  which  lay  all  her  strength.  I  do  not 
inMst  upon  the  probable  religious  signification  of  many  of  the 
sculptures  which  are  now  difficult  of  interpretation ;  but  the 
temper  which  made  the  cross  the  principal  ornament  of  every 
building  is  not  to  be  misunderstood,  nor  can  we  fail  to  pei- 
oeive,  in  many  of  the  minor  sculptural  subjects,  meaning^ 


THE   LAMP    OF    OBEDIEXCE.  1(51 

V 

perfectly  familiar  to  the  mind  of  early  Christianity.  The 
peacock,  used  in  preference  to  every  other  kind  of  bird,  is  the 
well  known  symbol  of  the  resurrection ;  and,  when  drinking 
from  a  fountain  or  from  a  font,  is,  I  doubt  not,  also  a  type  of 
ihe  new  life  received  in  faithful  baptism.  The  vine,  used  in 
preference  to  all  other  trees,  was  equally  recognised  as,  in 
all  cases,  a  type  either  of  Christ  Himself  or  of  those  who  were 
in  a  state  of  visible  or  professed  union  with  Him.  The  dove, 
at  its  foot,  represents  the  coming  of  the  Comforter;  and  even 
the  groups  of  contending  animals  had,  probably,  a  distinct 
and  universally  apprehended  reference  to  the  powers  of  evil. 
But  I  lay  no  stress  on  these  more  occult  meanings.  The  prin- 
cipal circumstance  which  marks  the  seriousness  of  the  early 
Venetian  mind  is  perhaps  the  last  in  which  the  reader  would 
suppose  it  was  traceable ; — that  love  of  bright  and  pure  color 
which,  in  a  modified  form,  was  afterwards  the  root  of  all  the 
triumph  of  the  Venetian  schools  of  painting,  but  which,  in  ita 
utmost  simplicity,  was  characteristic  of  the  Byzantine  period 
only ;  and  of  which,  therefore,  in  the  close  of  our  review  of 
that  period,  it  will  be  Avell  that  we  should  truly  estimate  the 
significance.  The  fact  is,  Ave  none  of  us  enough  appreciate 
the  nobleness  and  sacredness  of  color.  Nothing  is  more  com- 
mon than  to  hear  it  spoken  of  as  a  subordinate  beauty, — nay, 
even  as  the  mere  source  of  a  sensual  pleasure ;  and  we  might 
almost  believe  that  we  were  daily  among  men  who 

"  Could  strip,  for  aught  the  prospect  yields 
To  them,  their  verdure  from  the  fields; 
And  take  the  radiance  from  the  clouds 
With  which  the  sun  his  setting  shrouds." 

But  it  is  not  so.  Such  expressions  are  used  for  the  most  part 
in  thoughtlessness ;  and  if  the  speakers  would  only  take  the 
pains  to  imagine  what  the  world  and  their  own  existence 


102  ARCHITECTURE. 

would  become,  if  the  blue  were  taken  from  the  sky,  and  the 
gold  from  the  sunshine,  and  the  verdure  from  the  leaves,  and 
the  crimson  from  the  blood  which  is  the  life  of  man,  the  tiust 
rrom  the  cheek,  the  dai'kness  from  the  eye,  the  radiance  from 
the  hair, — if  they  could  but  see,  for  an  instant,  white  human 
creatures  living  in  a  white  world, — they  would  soon  feel 
what  they  owe  to  color.  The  fact  is,  that  of  all  God's  gifts 
to  the  sight  of  man,  color  is  the  holiest,  the  most  divine,  the 
most  solemn.  TVe  speak  rashly  of  gay  color  and  sad  color, 
for  color  cannot  at  once  be  good  and  gay.  All  good  color  is 
in  dome  degree  pensive,  the  loveliest  is  melancholy,  and  the 
purest  and  most  thoughtful  minds  are  those  which  love  color 
the  most. 

1  know  that  this  will  sound  strange  in  many  ears,  and  will 
be  especially  startling  to  those  who  have  considered  the  sub- 
ject chiefly  with  reference  to  painting;  for  the  great  \\n  thn 
schools  of  color  are  not  usually  understood  to  be  either 
pure  or  pensive,  and  the  idea  of  its  pre-eminence  is  associated 
in  nearly  every  mind  with  the  coarseness  of  Rubens,  an  1  1he 
sensualities  of  Correggio  and  Titian.  But  a  more  comprehen- 
sive view  of  art  will  soon  correct  this  impression.  It  will  be 
discovered,  in  the  first  place,  that  the  more  faithful  and 
earnest  the  religion  of  the  painter,  the  more  pure  and  prevalent 
is  the  system  of  his  color.  It  will  be  found,  in  the  second 
place,  that  where  color  becomes  a  primal  intention  with  a 
painter  otherwise  mean  or  sensual,  it  instantly  elevates  him, 
and  becomes  the  one  sacred  and  saving  element  in  his  work. 
The  very  depth  of  the  stoop  to  which  the  Venetian  painters 
and  Rubens  sometimes  condescend,  is  a  consequence  of  th.  ii 
fouling  confidence  in  the  power  of  their  color  to  keep  th  in 
from  falling.  They  hold  on  by  it,  as  l,v  a  chain  let  down  from 
heaven,  with  one  hand,  though  they  may  sometimes  seem  to 
gather  dust  and  ashes  with  the  other.  And,  in  the  last  place. 


THE   LAMP    OF    OBEDIENCE.  163 

it  will  be  found  that  so  surely  as  a  painter  is  irreligious,  thought- 
less, or  obscene  in  disposition,  so  surely  is  his  coloring  cold, 
gloomy,  and  valueless.  The  opposite  poles  of  art  in  this  res- 
pect are  Fra  Angelico  and  Salvator  Rosa ;  of  Avhom  the  one 
was  a  man  Avho  smiled  seldom,  wept  often,  prayed  constantly 
and  never  harbored  an  impure  thought.  His  pictures  are 
simply  so  many  pieces  of  jewellery,  the  colors  of  the  draperies 
being  perfectly  pure,  as  various  as  those  of  a  painted  window, 
chastened  only  by  paleness,  and  relieved  upon  a  gold  ground. 
Salvator  was  a  dissipated  jester  and  satirist,  a  man  who  spent 
his  life  in  masquing  and  revelry.  But  his  pictures  are  full  of 
horror,  and  their  color  is  for  the  most  part  -gloomy-grey. 
Truly,  it  would  seem  as  if  art  had  so  much  of  eternity  in  it, 
that  it  must  take  its  dye  from  the  close  rather  than  the 
course  of  life.  "  In  such  laughter  the  heart  of  man  is  sorrow- 
ful, and  the  end  of  that  mirth  is  heaviness." 

These  are  no  singular  instances.  I  know  no  law  more 
severely  without,  exception  than  this  of  the  connexion  of  pure 
color  with  profound  and  noble  thought.  The  late  Flemish 
pictures,  shallow  in  conception  and  obscure  hi  subject,  are 
always  sombre  in  color.  But  the  early  religious  painting  of 
the  Flemings  is  as  brilliant  in  hue  as  it  is  holy  in  thought. 
The  Bellinis,  Fraricias,  Peruginos,  painted  in  crimson,  and 
blue,  and  gold.  The  Caraccis,  Guides,  and  Renibrandts  in 
brown  and  grey.  The  builders  of  our  great  cathedrals  veiled 
their  casements  and  wrapped  their  pillars  with  one  robe  of 
purple  splendor.  The  builders  of  the  luxurious  Renaissance 
left  their  palaces  filled  only  with  cold  white  light,  and  in  the 
paleness  of  their  native  stone. 

Nor  does  it  seem  difficult  to  discern  a  noble  reason  for  this 
universal  law.  In  that  heavenly  circle  wl  rich  binds  the  statutes 
of  color  upon  the  front  of  the  sky,  when  it  became  the  sign 
of  the  covenant  of  peace,  the  pure  hu^s  of  divided  light  weie 


1  G'i  A  RCHITECTURE. 

sanctified  to  the  human  heart  for  ever;  nor  this,  it  would 
seem,  by  mere  arbitrary  appointment,  but  in  consequence  ot 
the  fore-ordained  and  marvellous  constitution  of  those  huea 
into  a  sevenfold,  or,  more  strictly  still,  a  threefold  order,  typical 
of  the  Divine  nature  itself. 

The  whole  church  of  St.  Mark's  was  a  great  Book  of  Com- 
mon Prayer,  the  mosaics  were  its  illuminations,  and  the  com 
mon  people  of  the  time  were  taught  their  scripture  history  by 
means  of  them,  more  impressively  perhaps,  though  far  less 
fully,  than  ours  are  now  by  scripture  reading.  They  had  no 
other  bible — and  Protestants  do  not  often  enough  consider 
this — could  have  no  other.  We  find  it  somewhat  difficult  to 
furnish  our  poor  with  printed  bibles ;  consider  what  the  diffi- 
culty must  have  been  when  they  could  be  given  only  in 
manuscript.  The  walls  of  the  church  necessarily  became  the 
poor  man's  Bible,  and  a  picture  was  more  easily  read  upon  the 
walls  than  a  chapter. 

GOTHIC   ARCHITECTURE. 

We  all  have  some  notion,  most  of  us  a  very  determined 
one,  of  the  meaning  of  the  term  Gothic ;  but  I  know  that 
many  persons  have  this  idea  in  their  minds  without  being  alilo 
to  define  it :  that  is  to  say,  understanding  generally  that  West- 
minster Abbey  is  Gothic,  and  St.  Paul's  is  not,  that  Strasburgh 
Cathedral  is  Gothic  and  St.  Peter's  is  not,  they  have,  never- 
theless, no  clear  notion  of  what  it  is  that  they  recognise  in  one 
or  miss  in  the  other,  such  as  would  enable  them  to  say  how 
far  the  work  at  Westminster  or  Strasburgh  is  good  and  pure 
of  its  kind;  still  less  to  say  of  any  nondescript  building,  like 
St.  James's  Palace  or  Windsor  Castle,  how  much  right  Gothic 
element  there  is  in  it,  and  how  much  wanting.  And  I  believe 
tiiis  inquiry  to  be  a  pleasant  and  profitable  one ,  and  that  there 
A'ill  be  found  something  more  than  usually  interesting  in  true- 


GOTHIC   ARCHITECTURE.  165 

ing  out  this  grey,  shadowy,  many  pinnacled  image  of  the 
Gothic  spirit  within  us;  and  discerning  what  fellowship  there 
is  between  it  and  our  Northern  hearts.  And  if,  at  any  point 
of  the  inquiry,  I  should  interfere  with  any  of  the  reader's  pre 
viously  formed  conceptions,  and  use  the  term  Gothic  in  any 
sense  which  he  would  not  willingly  attach  to  it,  I  do  not  ask 
him  to  accept,  but  only  to  examine  and  understand  my  inter- 
pretation, as  necessary  to  the  intelligibility  of  what  follows. 

We  have,  then,  the  Gothic  character  submitted  to  our  ana- 
lysis, just  as  the  rough  mineral  is  substituted  to  that  of  the 
chemist,  entangled  with  many  other  foreign  substances,  itself 
perhaps  in  no  place  pure,  or  ever  to  be  obtained  or  seen  in 
purity  for  more  than  an  instant ;  but  nevertheless  a  thing  of 
definite  and  separate  nature,  however  inextricable  or  confused 
in  appearance.  Xow  observe :  the  chemist  defines  his  mineral 
by  two  separate  kinds  of  characters ;  one  external,  its  crystal- 
line form,  hardness,  lustre,  «fcc. ;  the  other,  internal ;  the  pro- 
portions and  natiire  of  its  constituent  atoms.  Exactly  in  the 
same  manner,  we  shall  find  that  Gothic  architecture  has  exter- 
nal forms,  and  internal  elements.  Its  elements  are  certain 
mental  tendencies  of  the  builders,  legibly  expressed  in'it;  as 
fancii'ulness,  love  of  variety,  love  of  richness,  and  such  others. 
Its  external  forms  are  pointed  arches,  vaulted  roofs,  &c.  And 
unless  both  the  elements  and  the  forms  are  there,  we  have  no 
right  to  call  the  style  Gothic.  It  is  not  enough  that  it  has  the 
Form,  if  it  have  not  also  the  power  and  life.  It  is  not  enough 
that  it  has  the  Power,  if  it  have  not  the  form.  We  must  there 
fore  inquire  into  each  of  these  characters  successively  ;  and  de- 
termine, first,  what  is  the  Mental  Expression,  and  secondly,  what 
the  Material  Form,  of  Gothic  Architecture,  properly  so  called. 

1st.  Mental  Power  or  Expression.  What  characters,  we 
have  to  discover,  did  the  Gothic  builders  love,  or  instinctively 
express  hi  their  work,  as  distinguished  from  all  other  builders? 


166  ARCHITECTURE. 

Let  us  go  back  for  a  moment  to  our  chemistry,  and  note 
that,  in  defining  a  mineral  by  its  constituent  pails,  it  is  not 
one  nor  another  of  them  that  can  make  up  the  mineral,  but 
the  union  of  all :  for  instance,  it  is  neither  in  charcoal,  nor  in 
oxygen,  nor  in  lime,  that  there  is  the  making  of  chalk,  but  in 
the  combination  of  all  three  in  certain  measures ;  they  are  all 
found  in  very  different  things  from  chalk,  and  there  is  nothing 
like  chalk  either  in  charcoal  or  in  oxygen,  but  they  are  never- 
theless  necessary  to  its  existence. 

So  in  various  mental  characters  which  make  up  the  soul  of 
Gothic.  It  is  not  one  nor  another  that  produces  it,  but  their 
union  in  certain  measures.  Each  om  of  them  is  found  in 
many  other  architectures  besides  Gothic ;  but  Gothic  cannot 
exist  where  they  are  not  found,  or,  at  least,  where  their  place 
is  not  in  some  way  supplied.  Only  there  is  this  great  difference 
between  the  composition  of  the  mineral,  and  of  the  architect!! 
ral  style,  that  if  we  withdraw  one  of  its  elements  from  the 
stone,  its  form  is  utterly  changed,  and  its  existence  as  such 
and  such  a  mineral  is  destroyed ;  but  if  we  withdraw  one  of 
its  mental  elements  from  the  Gothic  style,  it  is  only  a  little  less 
Gothic  than  it  was  before,  and  the  union  of  two  or  three  of 
its  elements  is  enough  already  to  bestow  a  certain  Gothicness 
of  character,  which  gains  in  intensity  as  we  add  the  others, 
and  loses  as  we  again  withdraw  them. 

I  believe,  then,  that  the  characteristic  or  moral  elements  of 
Gothic  are  the  following,  placed  in  the  order  of  their  impor- 
tance: 

1.  Savageness. 

2.  Changefulness. 

3.  Naturalism. 

4.  Grotesqueness. 
6.  Rigidity. 

6.  Redundance. 


GOTHIC   ARCHITECTURE.  167 

These  characters  are  here  expressed  as  belonging  to  the 
buildings ;  as  belonging  to  the  builder,  they  would  be  expressed 
thus : — 1 .  Savagen»«,s  or  Rudeness.  2.  Love  of  Change.  3. 
Love  of  Nature.  4.  Disturbed  Imagination.  5.  Obstinacy 
6.  Generosity.  And  I  repeat,  that  the  withdrawal  of  any  one, 
or  any  two,  will  not  at  once  destroy  the  Gothic  character  of  a 
building,  but  the  removal  of  a  majority  of  them  will. 

I  am  not  sure  when  the  word  "Gothic"  was  first  generi- 
cally  applied  to  the  architecture  of  the  North;  but  I  presume 
that,  whatever  the  date  of  its  original  usage,  it  was  intended 
to  imply  reproach,  and  express  the  barbaric  character  of  the 
nations  among  whom  that  architecture  arose.  It  never  implied 
that  they  were  literally  of  Gothic  lineage,  far  less  that  theL 
architecture  had  been  originally  invented  by  the  Goths  them 
selves  ;  but  it  did  imply  that  they  and  their  buildings  together 
exhibited  a  degree  of  sternness  and  rudeness  which,  in  contra- 
distinction to  the  character  of  Southern  and  Eastern  nations, 
appeared  like  a  perpetual  reflection  of  the  contrast  between  the 
Goth  and  Roman  in  their  first '  encounter.  And  when  that 
fallen  Roman,  in  the  utmost  impotence  of  his  luxury,  and 
insolence  of  his  guilt,  became  the  model  for  the  imitation  of 
civilized  Europe,  at  the  close  of  the  so-called  Dark  ages,  the 
word  Gothic  became  a  term  of  unmitigated  contempt,  not 
unmixed  with  aversion.  From  that  contempt,  by  the  exertion 
of  the  antiquaries  and  architects  of  this  century,  Gothic  archi- 
tecture has  been  sufficiently  vindicated ;  and  perhaps  some 
among  us,  in  our  admiration  of  the  magnificent  science  of  its 
structure  and  sacredness  of  its  expression,  might  desire  that 
the  term  of  ancient  reproach  should  be  withdrawn,  and  some 
other,  of  more  apparent  honorableness,  adopted  in  its  place. 
There  is  no  chance,  as  there  is  no  need,  of  such  a  substitution. 
As  far  as  the  epithet  was  xised  scornfully,  it  was  used  falsely; 
but  there  is  no  reproach  in  the  word  rightly  understood ;  ou 


1 G  8  ARCHITECTURE. 

the  contrary,  there  is  a  profound  truth,  which  the  instinct  of 
mankind  almost  unconsciously  recognises. 

It  is  true,  greatly  and  deeply  true,  that  the  architecture  of 
the  North  is  rude  and  wild;  but  it  is  not  true  that,  lor  ibis 
reason,  we  are  to  condemn  it,  or  despise.  Far  otherwise  :  I 
believe  it  is  in  this  very  character  that  it  deserves  our  pro- 
foundest  reverence. 


THE   GROTESQUE. 

The  grotesque  which  comes  to  all  men  in  a  disturbed  dream, 
is  the  most  intelligible  example  (of  the  error  and  wildness 
of  the  mental  impressions  caused  by  fear  operating  upon 
strong  powers  of  imagination)  but  also  the  most  ignoble  ; 
the  imagination,  in  this  instance,  being  entirely  deprived 
of  all  aid  from  reason,  and  incapable  of  self-government. 
I  believe,  however,  that  the  noblest  forms  of  imaginative 
power  are  also  in  some  sort  ungovernable,  and  have  LM 
them  something  of  the  character  of  dreams ;  so  that  the  vision, 
of  whatever  kind,  comes  uncalled,  and  will  not  submit  itself 
to  the  seer,  but  conqxiers  him,  and  forces  him  to  speak  us  ;i 
prophet,  having  no  power  over  his  words  or  thoughts.  Only, 
if  the  whole  man  be  trained  perfectly,  and  his  mind  calm,  COE 
sistent,  and  powerful,  the  vision  which  comes  to  him  is  seen  03 
in  a  perfect  mirror,  serenely,  and  in  consistence  with  the 
rational  powers;  but  if  the  mind  be  imperfect  and  ill  traiii'-l. 
the  vision  is  seen  as  in  a  broken  mirror,  with  strange  distor- 
tions and  discrepancies,  all  the  passions  of  the  heart  breathing 
upon  it  in  cross  ripples,  till  hardly  a  trace  of  it  remains  un- 
broken. So  that,  strictly  speaking,  the  imagination  is  never 
governed;  it  is  always  the  ruling  and  Divine  power :  and  the 
rest  of  the  man  is  to  it  only  as  an  instrument  Mhich  it  sounds 


THE    GROTESQinE.  169 

or  a  tablet  on  which  it  writes ;  clearly  and  sublimely  if  the  was 
be  smooth  and  the  strings  true,  grotesquely  and  wildly  if  they 
are  stained  and  broken.  And  thus  the  "  Iliad,"  the  "  Inferno," 
the  "  Pilgrim's  Progress,"  the  "  Faerie  Queen,"  are  all  of 
them  true  dreams ;  only  the  sleep  of  the  men  to  whom  they 
came  was  the  deep,  living  sleep  which  God  sends,  with  a 
facredness  in  it  as  of  death,  the  revealer  of  secrets. 

No\v  observe  in  this  matter,  carefully,  the  difference  between 
a  dun  mirror  and  a  distorted  one  ;  and  do  not  blame  me  for 
pressing  the  analogy  too  far,  for  it  will  enable  me  to  explain 
my  meaning  every  way  more  clearly.  Most  men's  minds  are 
dim  mirrors,  in  wrhich  all  truth  is  seen,  as  St.  Paul  tells  us, 
darkly  :  this  is  the  fault  most  common  and  most  fatal ;  dulness 
of  the  hear,  and  mistiness  of  sight,  increasing  to  utter  hardness 
;ind  blindness ;  Satan  breathing  upon  the  glass,  so  that,  if  we 
do  not  sweep  the  mist  laboriously  away,  it  will  take  no  image. 
But,  even  so  far  as  we  are  able  to  do  this,  we  have  still  the 
distortion  to  fear,  yet  not  to  the  same  extent,  for  we  can  in 
some  sort  allow  for  the  distortion  of  an  image,  if  only  we  can 
see  it  clearly.  And  the  fallen  human  soul,  at  its  best,  must  be 
as  a  diminishing  glass,  and  that  a  broken  one,  to  the  mighty 
truths  of  the  universe  around  it ;  and  the  wider  the  scope  of 
its  glance,  and  the  vaster  the  truths  into  which  it  obtains  an 
insight,  the  more  fantastic  their  distortion  is  likely  to  be,  as 
the  winds  and  the  vapors  trouble  the  field  of  the  telescope 
most  when  it  reaches  farthest. 

It  is  not,  however,  in  every  symbolical  subject  that  the 
fearful  grotesque  becomes  embodied  to  the  full.  The  element 
of  distortion  which  affects  the  intellect  when  dealing  with 
subjects  above  its  proper  capacity,  is  as  nothing  compared 
with  that  which  it  sustains  from  the  direct  impressions  of 
terror.  It  is  the  trembling  of  the  human  soul  in  the  presence 
of  deatli  which  most  of  all  disturbs  the  images  on  the  intel- 

8 


1 70  ARCHITECTURE. 

lectual  mirror,  and  invests  them  with  the  fitfulncss  and  ghastli 
ness  of  dreams.  And  from  the  contemplation  of  death,  and  of 
the  pangs  which  follow  his  footsteps,  arise  in  men's  hearts  the 
troop  of  strange  and  irresistible  superstitions,  which,  more  or 
Jess  melancholy  or  majestic  according  to  the  dignity  of  the 
mind  they  impress,  are  yet  never  without  a  certain  grotesque- 
ness,  following  on  the  paralysis  of  the  reason  and  over-excite- 
ment of  the  fancy.  I  do  not  mean  to  deny  the  actual  existence 
of  spiritual  manifestations  ;  I  have  never  weighed  the  evidence 
upon  the  subject ;  but  with  these,  if  such  exist,  we  are  not 
here  concerned.  The  grotesque  which  we  are  examining 
arises  out  of  that  condition  of  mind  which  appears  to  follow 
naturally  upon  the  contemplation  of  death,  and  in  which  the 
fancy  is  brought  into  morbid  action  by  terror,  accompanied  by 
the  belief  in  spiritual  presence,  and  in  the  possibility  of  spiri- 
tual apparition.  Hence  are  developed  its  most  sublime,  be- 
cause its  least  voluntary,  creations,  aided  by  the  feat-fulness 
of  the  phenomena  of  nature  which  are  in  any  wise  the  minis- 
ters of  death,  and  primarily  directed  by  the  peculiar  ghastk- 
ness  of  expression  in  the  skeleton,  itself  a  species  of  terrible 
grotesque  in  its  relation  to  the  perfect  human  frame. 

Thus,  first  born  from  the  dusty  and  dreadful  whiteness  ot 
the  charnel  house,  but  softened  in  their  forms  by  the  holiest 
of  human  affections,  went  forth  the  troop  of  wild  and  wondei- 
ful  images,  seen  through  tears,  that  had  the  mastery  over  our 
Northern  hearts  for  so  many  ages.  The  powers  of  sudden  de 
gtruction  lurking  in  the  woods  and  waters,  in  the  rocks  and 
clouds; — kelpie  and  gnome,  Lurlei  and  Hartz  spirits;  the 
wraith  and  foreboding  phantom;  the  spectra  of  second  si^ht ; 
the  various  conceptions  of  avenging  or  tormented  ghost, 
haunting  the  perpetrator  of  crime,  or  expiating  its  commis- 
sion ;  and  the  half  fictitious  and  contemplative,  half  visionary 
and  believed  images  of  the  presence  of  death  itself,  doing  its 


THE   GROTESQUE.  171 

daily  work  in  the  chambers  of  sickness  and  sin,  and  wailing  for 
its  hour  in  the  fortalices  of  strength  and  the  high  places  oi 
pleasure ; — these,  partly  degrading  us  by  the  instinctive  and 
paralysing  terror  with  which  they  are  attended,  and  partly 
ennobling  us  by  leading  our  thoughts  to  dwell  in  the  eternal 
world,  fill  the  last  and  the  most  important  circle  in  that  greal 
kingdom  of  dark  and  distorted  power,  of  which  we  all  must 
be  in  some  sort  the  subjects  until  mortality  shall  be  swallowed 
up  of  life ;  until  the  waters  of  the  last  fordless  river  cease  to 
roll  their  untransparent  volume  between  us  and  the  light  of 
Leaven,  and  neither  death  stand  between  us  and  our  brethren, 
nor  symbols  between  us  and  our  God. 

If,  then,  ridding  ourselves  as  far  as  possible  of  prejudices 
owing  merely  to  the  school-teaching  which  remains  from  the 
system  of  the  Renaissance,  we  set  ourselves  to  discover  in 
what  races  the  human  soul,  taken  all  hi  all,  reached  its  liighesl 
magnificence,  we  shall  find,  I  believe,  two  great  families  of 
men,  one  of  the  East  and  South,  the  other  of  the  West  and 
North:  the  one  including  the  Egyptians,  Jews,  Arabian^ 
Assyrians,  and  Persians;  the  other  I  know  not  whence  derived, 
but  seeming  to  flow  forth  from  Scandinavia,  and  filling  the 
whole  of  Europe  with  its  Norman  and  Gothic  energy.  And 
in  both  these  families,  wherever  they  are  seen  in  their  ut 
most  nobleness,  there  the  grotesque  is  developed  in  its  utmost 
energy;  and  I  hardly  know  whether  most  to  admire  the 
winged  bulls  of  Nineveh,  or  the  winged  dragons  of  Verona. 

,  The  charts  of  the  world  which  have  been  drawn  up  by 
modern  science  have  thrown  into  a  narrow  space  the  expre^s- 
sion  of  a  vast  amount  of  knowledge,  but  I  have  never  yet 
seen  any  one  pictorial  enough  to  enable  the  spectator  to 
imagine  the  kind  of  contrast  in  physical  character  \vhich 


172  ARCHITECTURE. 

exists  between  northern  and  southern  countries.  We  krov* 
the  differences  in  detail,  but  we  have  not  that  broad  glance 
and  grasp  which  would  enable  us  to  feel  them  in  their  fulness 
We  know  that  gentians  grow  on  the  Alps,  and  olives  on  the 
Apennines;  but  we  do  not  enough  conceive  for  ourselves  that 
varigated  mosaic  of  the  world's  surface  which  a  bird  sees  in 
its  migration,  that  difference  between  the  district  of  the  gen- 
tian and  of  the  olive  which  the  stork  and  the  swallow  see  far 
off,  as  they  lean  upon  the  sirocco  wind.  Let  us,  for  a  moment, 
try  to  raise  ourselves  even  above  the  level  of  their  flight,  and 
imagine  the  Mediterranean  lying  beneath  us  like  an  irregular 
lake,  and  all  its  ancient  promontories  sleeping  in  the  sun ;  here 
and  there  an  angry  spot  of  thunder,  a  grey  stain  of  storm, 
moving  upon  the  burning  field ;  and  here  and  there  a  fixed 
wreath  of  white  volcano  smoke,  surrounded  by  its  circle  of 
ashes ;  but  for  the  most  part  a  great  peacefulness  of  light,  Syria 
and  Greece,  Italy  and  Spain,  laid  like  pieces  of  golden  pave- 
ment into  the  sea-blue,  chased,  as  we  Stoop  near  to  them,  with 
bossy  beaten  work  of  mountain  chains,  and  glowing  softly 
with  terraced  gardens,  and  flowers  heavy  with  frankincense, 
mixed  among  masses  of  laurel,  and  orange,  and  plumy  palm, 
that  abate  with  their  grey-green  shadows  the  burning  of  the 
marble  rocks,  and  of  the  ledges  of  porphyry  sloping  under 
lucent  sand.  Then  let  us  pass  farther  towards  the  north,  until 
we  «*ee  the  orient  colors  change  gradually  into  a  vast  belt  of 
rainy  green,  where  the  pastures  of  Switzerland,  and  poplar  val- 
leys of  France,  and  dark  forests  of  the  Danube  and  Carpathians 
si  retch  from  the  mouths  of  the  Loire  to  those  of  the  Volga,  seen 
through  clefts  in  grey  swirls  of  rain-cloud  and  flaky  veils  of  , 
the  mist  of  the  brooks,  spreading  low  along  the  pasture  lands 
and  then,  farther  north  still,  to  see  the  earth  heave  into  nii^ht) 
masses  of  leaden  rock  and  heathy  moor,  bordering  with  a 
broad  waste  of  gloomy  purple  that  belt  of  field  and  wood,  and 


THE   GROTESQUE.  173 

splintering  into  irregular  and  grisly  islands  amidst  the  north 
ern  seas,  beaten  by  storm,  and  chilled  by  ice-drift,  and  tor 
mented  by  furious  pulses  of  contending  tide,  until  the  roots 
of  the  last  forests  fail  from  among  the  hill  ravines,  and  the 
hunger  of  the  north  wind  bites  their  peaks  into  barrenness, 
and,  at  last,  the  wall  of  ice  durable  like  iron,  sets,  death- 
like,  its  white  teeth  against  us  out  of  the  polar  twilight.  Aud, 
having  once  traversed  in  thought  this  gradation  of  the  zoned 
iris  of  the  earth  in  all  its  material  vastness,  let  us  go  down 
nearer  to  it,  and  watch  the  parallel  change  in  the  belt  of  animal 
life :  the  multitudes  of  swift  and  brilliant  creatures  that  glance 
in  the  air  and  sea,  or  tread  the  sands  of  the  southern  zone : 
striped  zebras  and  spotted  leopards,  glistening  serpents,  and 
birds  arrayed  in  purple  and  scarlet.  Let  us  contrast  their 
delicacy  and  brilliancy  of  color,  and  swiftness  of  motion,  with 
the  frost-cramped  strength,  and  shaggy  covering,  and  dusky 
plumage  of  the  northern  tribes ;  contrast  the  Arabian  horse 
with  the  Shetland,  the  tiger  and  leopard  with  the  wolf  and 
bear,  the  antelope-  with  the  elk,  the  bird  of  paradise  with  the 
osprey ;  and  then,  submissively  acknowledging  the  great  laws 
by  which  the  earth  and  all  that  it  bears  are  ruled  throughout 
their  being,  let  us  not  condemn,  but  rejoice  in  the  expression 
by  man  of  his  own  rest  in  the  statutes  of  the  land  that  gave 
him  birth.  Let  us  watch  him  with  reverence  as  he  sets  side 
by  side  the  burning  gems,  and  smooths  with  soft  sculptme 
the  jasper  pillars,  that  are  to  reflect  a  ceaseless  sunshine,  and 
rise  into  a  cloudless  sky ;  but  not  with  less  reverence  tat  us 
stand  by  him,  when,  with  rough  strength  and  hurried  .stroke, 
he  smites  an  uncouth  animation  out  of  the  rocks  whLh  he  has 
torn  from  among  the  moss  of  the  moorland,  and  Leaves  intc 
the  darkened  air  the  pile  of  iron  buttress  and  r  pgged  wall, 
instinct  with  work  of  an  imagination  as  wild  and  wayward  as 
the  nc  rthern  sea ,  creations  of  ungainly  shape  and  rigid  linib 


174  ABCHITECTUEJE. 

but  full  of  wolfish  life ;  fierce  as  the  winds  that  beat,  and 
changeful  as  the  clouds  that  shade  them. 

In  one  point  of  view  Gothic  is  not  only  the  best  but  the 
only  rational  architecture,  as  being  that  which  can  fit  itself 
most  easily  to  all  services,  vulgar  or  noble.  Undefined  in  its 
slope  of  roof,  height  of  shaft,  breadth  of  arch,  or  disposition 
of  ground  plan,  it  can  shrink  into  a  turret,  expand  into  a  hall, 
coil  into  a  staircase,  or  spring  into  a  spire,  with  undegraded 
grace  and  unexhausted  energy ;  and  whenever  it  finds  occasion 
for  change  in  its  form  or  purpose,  it  submits  to  it  without  the 
slightest  sense  of  loss  either  to  its  unity  or  majesty, — subtle 
and  flexible  like  a  fiery  serpent,  but  ever  attentive  to  the  voice 
of  the  charmer.  And  it  is  one  of  the  chief  virtues  of  the 
Gothic  builders,  that  they  never  suffered  ideas  of  outside 
symmetries  and  consistencies  to  interfere  with  the  real  use  and 
value  of  what  they  did.  If  they  wanted  a  window,  they 
opened  one ;  a  room,  they  added  one ;  a  buttress,  they  built 
one  ;  utterly  regardless  of  any  established  conventionalities  of 
external  appearance,  knowing  (as  indeed  it  always  happened) 
that  such  daring  interruptions  of  the  formal  plan  would 
rather  give  additional  interest  to  its  symmetry  than  injure  it. 
So  that,  in  the  best  times  of  Gothic,  a  useless  window  would 
rather  have  been  opened  in  an  unexpected  place  for  the  sake 
of  the  surprise,  than  a  useful  one  forbidden  for  the  sake  of 
symmetry.  Every  successive  architect,  employed  upon  a  great 
work,  built  the  pieces  he  added  in  his  own  way,  utterly  regard- 
Joss  of  the  style  adopted  by  his  predecessors;  and  if  two 
towers  were  raised  in  nominal  correspondence  at  the  sides  of 
a  cathedral  front,  one  was  nearly  sure  to  be  different  from  the 
other,  and  in  each  the  style  at  the  top  to  be  different  from  the 
style  at  the  bottom. 

The  most  striking  outward  feature  in  all  Gothic  architecture 


THE   GROTESQUE.  175 

is,  111  at  it  is  composed  of  pointed  arches,  as  in  Romanesque 
that  it  is  in  like  manner  composed  of  round  ;  and  this  distinc- 
tion would  be  quite  as  clear,  though  the  roofs  were  taker 
off  every  cathedral  in  Europe.  And  yet,  if  we  examine  care- 
fully into  the  real  force  and  meaning  of  the  term  "  roof,"  we  ' 
shall,  perhaps,  be  able  to  retain  the  old  popular  idea  in  a  deli 
nition  of  Gothic  architecture,  which  shall  also  express  what 
ever  dependence  that  architecture  has  upon  true  forms  01 
roofing. 

Roofs  are  generally  divided  into  two  parts ;  the  roof  proper, 
that  is  to  say,  the  shell,  vault,  or  ceiling,  internally  visible ; 
and  the  roof-mask,  which  protects  this  lower  roof  from  the 
weather.  In  some  buildings  these  parts  are  united  in  one 
frame-work ;  but  in  most  they  are  more  or  less  independent 
of  each  other,  and  in  nearly  all  Gothic  buildings  there  is  a 
considerable  interval  between  them. 

Now  it  will  often  happen,  that  owing  to  the  nature  of  the 
apartments  required,  or  the  materials  at  hand,  the  roof  pro- 
per may  be  flat,  coved,  or  domed,  in  buildings  which  in  their 
walls  employ  pointed  arches,  and  are,  in  the  straitest  sense  of 
the  word,  Gothic  in  all  other  respects.  Yet  so  far  forth  as  the 
roofing  alone  is  concerned,  they  are  not  Gothic  unless  the 
pointed  arch  be  the  principal  form  adopted  either  in  the  stone 
vaulting  or  the  timbers  of  the  roof  proper. 

I  shall  say  then,  in  the  first  place,  that  "  Gothic  architecture 
is  that  which  uses,  if  possible,  the  pointed  arch  in  the  roof 
proper."  This  is  the  first  step  in  our  definition. 

Secondly.  Although  there  may  be  many  advisable  or  neces- 
sary forms  for  the  lower  roof  or  ceiling,  there  is,  in  cold  coun- 
tries exposed  to  rain  and  fnow,  only  one  advisable  form 
lor  the  roof-mask,  and  that  is  the  gable,  for  this  alone  will 
throw  off  both  rain  and  snow  from  all  parts  of  its  surface  as 
speedily  as  possible.  Snow  can  lodge  on  the  top  of  a  dome, 


1 76  ARCHITECTURE. 

nut  on  the  ridge  of  a  gable.  And  thus,  as  far  as  roofkg  is 
concerned,  the  gable  is  a  far  more  essential  feature  of  Northern 
architecture  than  the  pointed  vault,  for  the  one  is  a  thorough 
necessity,  the  other  often  a  grateful  conventionality ;  the  gable 
occurs  in  the  timber-roof  of  every  dwelling-house  and  every 
cottage,  but  not  the  vault ;  and  the  gable  built  on  a  polygonal 
or  circular  plan,  is  the  origin  of  the  turret  and  spire  ;  and  ill 
the  so-called  aspiration  of  Gothic  architecture  is  nothing 
more  than  its  development.  So  that  we  must  add  to  our 
definition  another  clause,  which  will  be  at  present  by  far  the 
most  important,  and  it  will  stand  thus  :  "  Gothic  architecture 
is  that  which  uses  the  pointed  arch  for  the  roof  proper,  and 
the  gable  for  the  roof-mask." 

And  here,  in  passing,  let  us  notice  a  principle  as  true  in  archi 
tecture  as  in  morals.  It  is  not  the  compelled,  but  the  wilful, 
transgression  of  law  which  corrupts  the  character.  Sin  is  not 
in  the  act,  but  in  the  choice.  It  is  a  law  for  Gothic  architec- 
ture, that  it  shall  use  the  pointed  arch  for  its  roof  proper ;  but 
because,  in  many  cases  of  domestic  building,  this  becomes 
impossible  for  want  of  room  (the  whole  height  of  the  apart- 
ment being  required  every  where),  or  in  various  other  ways 
inconvenient,  flat  ceilings  may  be  used,  and  yet  the  Gothic 
shall  not  lose  its  purity.  But  in  the  roof-mask  there  can  be 
no  necessity  nor  reason  for  a  change  of  form :  the  gable  is  the 
best ;  and  if  any  other — dome,  or  bulging  crown,  or  whatso- 
ever else — be  employed  at  all,  it  must  be  in  pure  caprice  and 
wilful  transgression  of  law.  And  wherever,  therefore,  this  ia 
done,  the  Gothic  has  lost  its  character ;  it  is  pure  Gothic  no 
more. 

I  plead  for  the  introduction  of  the  Gothic  form  into  our 
domestic  architecture,  not  merely  because  it  is  lovely,  but 
because  it  is  the  only  form  of  faithful,  strong,  enduring,  and 


THE    GROTESQUE.  177 

honorable  building,  in  such  materials  as  comb  daily  tc  our 
hands.  By  an  increase  of  scale  and  costs  it  is  impossible  to 
build,  in  any  style,  what  will  last  for  ages;  but  only  in  the 
Gothic  is  it  possible  to  give  security  and  dignity  tp  work 
wrought  with  imperfect  means  and  materials.  And  I  trust  that 
ihere  will  come  a  time  when  the  English  people  may  see  the 
folly  of  building  basely  and  insecurely.  It  is  common  with 
those  architects  against  whose  practice  my  writings  have 
hitherto  been  directed,  to  call  them  merely  theoretical  and 
imaginative.  I  answer,  that  there  is  not  a  single  principle 
asserted  either  in  the  "  Seven  Lamps"  or  here,  but  is  of  the 
simplest,  sternest  veracity,  and  the  easiest  practicability ;  that 
buildings,  raised  as  I  would  have  them,  Avould  stand  unshaken 
for  a  thousand  years ;  and  the  buildings  raised  by  the  archi 
tects  who  oppose  them  will  not  stand  for  one  hundred  and 
fifty,  they  sometimes  do  not  stand  for  an  hour.  There  is 
hardly  a  week  passes  without  some  catastrophe  brought  about 
by  the  base  principles  of  modern  building  :  some  vaultless 
floor  that  drops  the  stnggering  crowd  through  the  jagged 
rents  of  its  rotten  timbers;  some  baseless  bridge  that  is 
washed  away  by  the  first  wave  of  a  common  flood;  some 
fungous  wall  of  nascent  rottenness  that  a  thunder-si  .ower  soaks 
down  with  its  workmen  into  a  heap  of  slime  and  d«  ath.  These 
we  hear  of,  day  by  day  ;  yet  these  indicate  but  a  thousandth 
part  of  the  evii.  The  portion  of  the  national  ii  come  sacri- 
ficed in  mere  bad  building,  in  the  perpetual  repaii  s,  and  swift 
condemnation  and  pulling  down  of  ill-built  shells  of  houses, 
passes  all  calculation.  And  the  weight  of  the  penalty  is  not 
yet  felt ;  it  will  tell  upon  our  children  some  fifty  years  hence, 
when  the  cheap  work,  and 'contract  work,  and  stucco  and 
plaster  work,  and  bad  iron  work,  and  all  the  other  expedients 
of  modern  rivalry,  vanity,  and  dishonesty,  begin  to  show 
themselves  for  what  they  are. 

6* 


178  ARCHITECTURE. 

THE    RENAISSANCE. 

Although  Renaissance  architecture  assumes  very  different 
forms  among  different  nations,  it  may  be  conveniently  referred 
to  three  heads : — Early  Renaissance,  consisting  of  the  first  cor 
mptions  introduced  into  the  Gothic  schools:  Central  or  Roman 
1  iennissance,  which  is  the  peiiectly  formed  style ;  and  Grotesque 
R  ^naissance,  which  is  the  corruption  of  the  Renaissance  itself.- 

Now,  in  order  to  do  full  justice  to  the  adverse  cause,  we  will 
consider  the  abstract  nature  of  the  school  with  reference  only 
to  its  best  or  central  examples.  The  forms  of  building  which 
must  be  classed  generally  under  the  term  early  Renaissance 
are,  in  many  cases,  only  the  extravagances  and  corruptions  of 
the  languid  Gothic,  for  whose  errors  the  classical  principle  is  in 
no  wise  answerable.  It  was  stated  in  the  "  Seven  Lamps," 
that  unless  luxury  had  enervated  and  subtlety  falsified  the 
Gothic  forms,  Roman  traditions  could  not  have  prevailed 
against  them ;  and,  although  these  enervated  and  false  condi- 
tions are  almost  instantly  colored  by  the  classical  influence,  it 
would  be  utterly  unfair  to  lay  to  the  charge  of  that  influence 
the  first  debasement  of  the  earlier  schools,  which  had  lost  the 
strength  of  their  system  before  they  could  be  struck  by  the 
plague. 

The  manner,  however,  of  the  debasement  of  all  schools  of 
art,  so  far  as  it  is  natural,  is  in  all  ages  the  same  ;  luxuriance 
of  ornament,  refinement  of  execution,  and  idle  subtleties  of 
fancy,  taking  the  place  of  true  thought  and  firm  handling;  and 
I  do  not  intend  to  delay  the  reader  long  by  the  Gothic  sick- 
bed, for  our  task  is  not  so  much  to  watch  the  wasting  of  level 
in  the  features  of  the  expiring  King,  as  to  trace  the  eharactei 
of  that  Hazael  who  dipped  the  cloth  in  water,  and  laid  it  upon 
his  face.  Nevertheless,  it  is  necessary  to  the  completeness  of 
our  view  of  the  architecture  of  Venice,  as  well  us  to  our  under 


THE   RENAISSANCE.  179 

standing  &f  the  manner  in  which  the  Central  Renaissance 
obtained  its  universal  dominion,  that  we  glance  briefly  at  tht 
principal  forms  into  which  Venetian  Gothic  first  declined.  They 
are  two  in  number :  one  the  corruption  of  the  Gothic  itself; 
the  other  a  partial  return  to  Byzantine  forms :  for  the  Venetian 
uiind  having  carried  the  Gothic  to  a  point  at  which  it  was  dis- 
satisfied, tried  to  retrace  its  steps,  fell  back  first  upon  Byzantine 
types,  and  through  them  passed  to  the  first  Roman.  But  in 
thus  retracing  its  steps,  it  does  not  recover  its  own  lost  energy. 
It  revisits  the  places  through  which  it  had  passed  in  the  morn- 
ing light,  but  it  is  now  with  wearied  limbs,  and  under  the 
gloomy  shadow  of  the  evening. 

Against  this  degraded  Gothic,  then,  came  up  the  Renaissance 
armies;  and  their  first  assault  was  in  the  requirement  of 
universal  perfection.  For  the  first  time  since  the  destruction 
of  Rome,  the  world  had  seen,  in  the  work  of  the  greatest 
artists  of  the  fifteenth  century, — in  the  painting  of  Ghiiiandajo, 
Masaccio,  Francia,  Perugino,  Pinturicchio,  and  Bellini ;  in  the 
sculpture  of  Mino  da  Fiesole,  of  Ghiberti,  and  Verrocchio, — a 
perfection  of  execution  and  fulness  of  knowledge  which  cast 
all  previous  art  into  the  shade,  and  which,  being  in  the  work 
of  those  men  united  with  all  that  was  great  in  that  of  former 
clays,  did  indeed  justify  the  utmost  enthusiasm  with  which  their 
efforts  were,  or  could  be,  regarded.  But  when  this  perfection 
had  once  been  exhibited  in  anything,  it  was  required  in  every- 
thing ;  the  world  could  no  longer  be  satisfied  with  less  exquisite 
execution,  or  less  disciplined  knowledge.  The  first  thing  that 
it  demanded  in  all  work  was,  that  it  should  be  done  in  a  con- 
summate and  learned  way  ;  and  men  altogether  forgot  that  it 
was  possible  to  consummate  what  was  contemptible,  and  to 
know  what  was  useless.  Imperatively  requiring  dexterity  of 
touch,  they  gradually  forgot  to  look  lor  tenderness  of  feeling; 


1 80  ARCHITECTURE. 

imperatively  requiring  accuracy  of  knowledge,  they  gradually 
forgot  to  ask  for  originality  of  thought.  The  thought  and  the 
feeling  which  they  despised  departed  from  them,  and  they  were 
left  to  felicitate  themselves  on  their  small  science  and  their  m-at 
fingering.  This  is  the  history  of  the  first  attack  of  the  Renais- 
sance upon  the  Gothic  schools,  and  of  its  rapid  results ;  mort 
fatal  and  immediate  in  architecture  than  in  any  other  art, 
because  there  the  demand  for  perfection  was  less  reasonable, 
and  less  consistent  with  the  capabilities  of  the  workman ; 
being  utterly  opposed  to  that  rudeness  or  savageness  on"  which, 
as  we  saw  above,  the  nobility  of  the  elder  schools  in  great  part 
depends.  But,  inasmuch  as  the  innovations  were  founded  on 
some  of  the  most  beautiful  examples  of  art,  and  headed  by  some 
of  the  greatest  men  that  the  world  ever  saw,  and  as  the  Gothic 
with  which  they  interfered  was  corrupt  and  valueless,  the  first 
appearance  of  the  Renaissance  feeling  had  the  appearance  of  a 
healthy  movement.  A  new  energy  replaced  whatever  weari- 
ness or  dulness  had  affected  the  Gothic  mind;  an  exquisite 
taste  and  refinement,  aided  by  extended  knowledge,  furnished 
the  first  models  of  the  new  school ;  and  over  the  whole  of  Italy 
a  style  arose,  generally  known  as  cinque-cento,  which  in  sculp- 
ture and  painting,  as  I  just  stated,  produced  the  noblest  mas- 
ters whom  the  world  ever  saw,  headed  by  JVtichacl  Angelo, 
Raphael,  and  Leonardo ;  but  which  failed  in  doing  the  same  in 
architecture,  because,  as  we  have  seen  above,  perfection  is 
therein  not  possible,  and  failed  more  totally  than  it  would 
otherwise  have  done,  because  the  classical  enthusiasm  had  dea 
1  rcyed  the  best  types  of  architectural  form. 

The  effect,  then,  cf  the  sudden  enthusiasm  for  classical  lite- 
rature, which  gained  strength  during  every  hour  of  the 
fifteenth  century,  was,  as  far  as  respected  architecture,  to  dc 
away  with  the  entire  system  of  Gothic  science.  The  poiuu*j| 


THE    RENAISSANCE.  181 

arch,  the  shadowy  vault,  the  clustered  shaft,  the  heaven-point 
ing  spire,  were  aJ  swept  away;  and  no  structure  was  any 
longer  permitted  but  that  of  the  plain  cross-beam  from  pillai 
to  pillar,  over  the  round  arch  with  square  or  circular  shafts, 
and  a  low  gabled  roof  and  pediment ;  two  elements  of  noble 
form,  which  had  fortunately  existed  in  Rome,  were,  however, 
for  that  reason,  still  permitted ;  the  cupola,  and,  internally,  the 
waggon  vault. 

Do  not  let  me  be  misunderstood  when  I  speak  generally  of 
the  evil  spirit  of  the  Renaissance.  The  reader  may  look 
through  all  I  have  written,  from  first  to  last,  and  he  will  not 
find  one  word  but  the  most  profound  reverence  for  those 
mighty  men  who  could  wear  the  Renaissance  armor  of  proof, 
and  yet  not  feel  it  encumber  their  living  limbs, — Leonardo 
and  Michael  Angelo,  Ghirlandajo  and  Masaccio,  Titian  and 
Tintoret.  But  I  speak  of  the  Renaissance  as  an  evil  time, 
because,  when  it  saw  those  men  go  burning  forth  into  the 
battle,  it  mistook  their  armor  for  their  strength;  and  forth- 
with encumbered  with  the  painful  panoply  every  stripling 
who  ought  to  have  gone  forth  only  with  his  own  choice  of  three 
amall  stones  out  of  the  brook. 

Over  the  greater  part  of  the  surface  of  the  world,  we  find 
that  a  rock  has  been  providentially  distributed,  in  a  manner 
particularly  pointing  it  out  as  intended  for  the  service  of  man. 
Not  altogether  a  common  rock,  it  is  yet  rare  enough  to  command 
a  certain  degree  of  interest  and  attention  wherever  it  is  found  * 
b:it  not  so  rare  as  to  preclude  its  use  for  any  purpose  to  which 
it  is  fitted.  It  is  exactly  of  the  consistence  which  is  best 
adapted  for  sculpture ;  that  is  to  say,  neither  hard  nor  brittle, 
nor  flaky  nor  splintery,  but  uniform,  and  delicately,  yet  not 
ignobly  soft — exactly  soft  enough  to  allow  the  sculptor  to 


182  ARCHITECTURE. 

work  it  without  force,  and  trace  on  it  the  finest  lines  oi 
finished  forms ;  and  yet  so  hard  as  never  to  betray  the  toucl 
or  moulder  away  beneath  the  steel ;  and  so  admirably  crystal- 
lized, and  of  such  permanent  elements,  that  no  rains  dissolve 
it,  no  time  changes  it,  no  atmosphere  decomposes  it ;  oucfc 
shaped,  it  is  shaped  for  ever,  unless  subjected  to  actual  vio 
lence  or  attrition.  This  rock,  then,  is  prepared  by  Nature  for 
the  sculptor  and  architect,  just  as  paper  is  prepared  by  the 
manufacturer  for  the  artist,  with  as  great — nay,  with  greater — 
care,  and  move  perfect  adaptation  of  the  material  to  the  require- 
ments. And  of  this  marble  paper,  some  is  white  and  some 
colored ;  but  more  is  colored  than  white,  because  the  white  is 
evidently  meant  for  sculpture,  and  the  colored  for  the  covering 
of  large  surfaces.  Now  if  we  would  take  Nature  at  her  word, 
and  use  this  precious  paper  which  she  has  taken  so  much  care 
to  provide  for  us  (it  is  a  long  process,  the  making  of  that 
paper;  the  pulp  of  it  needed  the  subtlest  possible  solution,  and 
the  pressing  of  it — for  it  is  all  hot  pressed — having  to  be  done 
under  the  sea,  or  under  something  at  least  as  heavy) ;  if,  I  say, 
we  use  it  as  Nature  would  have  us,  consider  what  advantages 
would  follow. 

The  colors  of  marble  are  mingled  for  us  just  as  if  on  a  pre- 
pared palette.  They  are  of  all  shades  and  hues  (except  bad 
ones),  some  being  united  and  even,  some  broken,  mixed,  and 
interrupted,  in  order  to  supply,  as  far  as  possible,  the  want  ot 
the  painter's  power  of  breaking  and  mingling  the  color  with 
the  brush.  But  there  is  more  in  the  colors  than  this  delicacy 
of  adaptation.  There  is  history  in  them.  '  By  the  manner  in 
which  they  are  arranged  in  every  piece  of  marble,  they  record 
the  means  by  which  that  marble  has  been  produced,  and  the 
successive  changes  through  which  it  has  passed.  And  in  all 
their  veins  ard  zones,  and  flame-like  stainings,  or  broken  and 


THE  KEXAISSANCE.  183 

disconnected  lines,  they  write  various  legends,  never  untrue, 
of  the  former  political  state  of  the  mountain  kingdom  to  which 
they  belonged,  of  its  infirmities  and  fortitudes,  convulsions 
and  consolidations,  from  the  beginning  of  time. 


f)art  4 
SCULIPTUHE. 


"  My  friend,  all  speech  and  humor  is  short-  lived,  foolish,  untrue.  Genuine 
work  alone,  what  thou  workest  faitlifully,  that  is  eternal 

"  Take  courage,  then — raise  the  arm — strike  home  and  ths  t  right  lustily — 
the  citadel  of  Hope  must  yield  to  noble  desire,  thus  seconded  by  noble 
efforts." 


flart  4. 

SCULPTURE. 

ARCHITECTURE  is  the  work  of  nations ;  but  we  cannot  have 
nations  of  great  sculptors.  Every  house  in  every  street  oi 
every  city  ought  to  be  good  architecture,  but  we  cannot  have 
Flaxman  or  Thonvaldsen  at  work  upon  it,  nor  if  we  choose 
only  to  devote  ourselves  to  our  public  buildings,  could  the 
mass  and  majority  of  them  be  great,  if  we  required  all  to  be 
executed  by  great  men ;  greatness  is  not  to  be  had  in  the 
required  quantity.  Giotto  may  design  a  Campanile,  but  he 
cannot  carve  it,  he  can  only  carve  one  or  two  of  the  bas-re- 
liefs at  the  base  of  it.  And  with  every  increase  of  your  fasti- 
diousness in  the  execution  of  your  ornament,  you  dimmish  the 
possible  number  and  grandeur  of  your  buildings.  Do  not 
think  you  can  educate  your  workmen,  or  that  the  demand  for 
perfection  will  increase  the  supply ;  educated  imbecility  and 
finessed  foolishness  are  the  worst  of  all  imbecilities  and  fool- 
ishnesses, and  there  is  no  free-trade  measure  which  wrill  ever 
lower  the  price  of  brains, — there  is  no  California  of  common 
sense. 

Suppose  one  of  those  old  Ninevite  or  Egyptian  builders, 
with  a  couple  of  thousand  men — mud-bred,  onion-eating 
creatures,  under  him,  to  be  set  to  work,  like  so  many  ants, 
on  his  temple  sculptures.  What  is  he  to  do  with  them  ?  He 
can  put  them  through  a  granitic  exercise  of  current  hand ;  he 
can  teach  them  all  how  to  curl  hair  thoroughly  into  croche- 


188  SCITLPTURE. 

coeurs,  as  you  teach  a  bench  of  school-boys  how  to  shape  f  ot 
hooks ;  he  can  teach  them  all  how  to  draw  long  eyes  and 
straight  noses,  and  how  to  copy  accurately  certain  well-de 
fined  lines.  Then  he  fits  his  own  great  designs  to  then 
capacities ;  he  takes  out  of  king,  or  lion,  or  god,  as  much  aa 
\vas  expressible  by  croche-coeurs  and  granitic  pothooks;  he 
throws  this  into  noble  forms  of  his  own  imagining,  and  having 
mapped  out  their  lines  so  that  there  can  be  no  possibility  of 
error,  sets  his  two  thousand  men  .to  work  upon  them,  witli  a 
will  and  so  many  onions  a  day. 

Those  times  cannot  now  return.  "We  have,  with  Chris- 
tianity, recognised  the  individual  value  of  eveiy  soul;  and 
there  is  no  intelligence  so  feeble  but  that  its  single  ray  may 
in  some  sort  contribute  to  the  general  light. 

It  is  foolish  to  carve  what  is  to  be  seen  forty  yards  off  with 
the  delicacy  which  the  eye  demands  within  two  yards ;  not 
merely  because  it  is  lost  in  the  distance,  but  because  it  is  a 
great  deal  worse  than  lost ;  the  delicate  work  has  actually 
worse  effect  in  the  distance  than  rough  work. 

We  may  be  asked,  whether  in  advocating  this  adaptation  tc 
the  distance  of  the  eye,  I  obey  my  adopted  rules  of  observance 
of  natural  law.  Are  not  all  natural  things,  it  may  be  asked, 
as  lovely  near  as  far  away?  Nay,  not  so.  Look  at  the 
clouds,  and  watch  the  delicate  sculpture  of  their  alabaster 
sides,  and  the  rounded  lustre  of  their  magnificent  rolling. 
They  are  meant  to  be  beheld  far  away ;  they  were  shaped  for 
their  place,  high  above  your  head ;  approach  them,  and  they 
fuse  into  vague  mists,  or  whirl  away  in  fierce  fragments  of 
thunderous  vapor.  Look  at  the  crest  of  the  Alp,  from  the 
tar-away  plains  over  which  the  light  is  cast,  whence  human 
souls  have  communion  with  it  by  their  myriads.  The  child 
looks  up  to  it  in  the  dawn,  and  the  husbandman  in  the  burdec 


SCULPTURE.  ]  89 

and  heat  of  the  day,  ana  the  old  man  in  the  going  down  of 
the  sun,  and  it  is  to  therii  all  as  the  celestial  city  on  the 
world's  horizon ;  dyed  with  the  depths  of  heaven,  and  clothed 
with  the  calm  of  eternity.  There  was  .t  set,  for  holy  domi 
Dion,  by  Him  who  marked  for  the  sun  his  journey,  and  bade 
the  moon  know  her  going  down.  It  was  built  for  its  place  in 
the  far-off  sky ;  approach  it,  and  as  the  sound  of  the  voice  of 
man  dies  away  about  its  foundations,  and  the  tide  of  human 
life,  shallowed  upon  the  vast  arid  shore,  is  at  last  met  by  the 
Eternal  "  Here  shall  thy  proud  waves  be  stayed,"  the  glory 
of  its  aspect  fades  into  blanched  fearfulness ;  its  purple  walls 
are  rent  into  grisly  rocks,  its  silver  fretwork  saddened  into 
wasting  snow ;  the  storm-brands  of  ages  are  on  its  breast,  the 
ashes  of  its  own  ruin  lie  solemnly  on  its  white  raiment. 

Xow  it  is  indeed  true  that  where  nature  loses  one  kind  of 
beauty,  as  you  approach  it,  she  substitutes  another;  this  is 
worthy  of  her  infinite  power,  and  art  can  sometimes  follow  hei 
even  in  doing  this.  Take  a  singular  and  marked  instance. 
When  the  sun  rises  behind  a  ridge  of  pines,  and  those  pines 
are  seen  from  a  distance  of  a  mile  or  two ;  against  his  Jight, 
the  Avhole  form  of  the  tree,  trunk,  branches,  and  all  becomes 
one  frostwork  of  intensely  brilliant  silver,  which 'is  relieved 
against  the  day  sky  like  a  burning  fringe,  for  some  distance 
on  either  side  of  the  sun !  Shakspeare  and  Wordsworth  have 
noticed  this.  Shakspeare  in  Richard  II. : — 

"  But  when,  from  under  this  terrestrial  ball, 
He  fires  the  proud  tops  of  the  eastern  pines." 

And  Wordsworth,  in  one  of  his  minor  poems,  on  leaving 
Italy:— 

My  thoughts  become  bright,  like  yon  edging  of  pines- 
On  the  steep  ?  lofty  verge,  how  it  blackened  the  air. 

But  touched  from  behind  by  the  sun,  it  now  shines 
With  threads  thai  seem  part  of  his  own  silver  hair. 


190  SCULPTUnE. 

Now,  suppose  one  who  had  never  seen  pines,  were,  for  the 
fiist  time  in  his  life,  to  see  them  under  this  strange  aspect,  and, 
reasoning  as  to  the  means  by  which  such  effect  could  he  pro- 
duced, laboriously  to  approach  the  eastern  ridge,  how  would 
he  be  amazed  to  find  that  the  fiery  spectres  had  been  produced 
by  trees  with  swarthy  and  grey  trunks,  and  dark  green  leaves ! 
We  in  our  simplicity,  if  we  had  been  required  to  produce 
such  an  appearance,  should  have  built  up  trees  of  chased  sil 
ver,  with  trunks  of  glass,  and  then  been  grievously  amazed  to 
find  that,  at  two  miles  off,  neither  silver  nor  glass  were  any 
more  visible ;  but  Nature  knew  better,  and  prepared  for  her 
fairy  work  with  the  strong  branches  and  dark  leaves,  in  her 
own  mysterious  way. 

Now  this  is  exactly  what  you  have  to  do  with  your  good 
ornament.  It  may  be  that  it  is  capable  of  being  approached, 
as  well  as  likely  to  be  seen  far  away,  and  then  it  ought  to 
have  microscopic  qualities,  as  the  pine  leaves  have,  which  will 
bear  approach.  But  your  calculation  of  its  purpose  is  for  a 
glory  to  be  produced  at  a  given  distance. 

All  noble  ornament  is  the  expression  of  man's  delight  in 
God's  work. 

The  function  of  ornament  is  to  make  you  happy.  Now,  in 
what  are  you  rightly  happy  ?  Not  in  thinking  what  you  have 
done  yourself;  not  in  your  own  pride  ;  not  in  your  own  birth  ; 
not  in  your  own  being,  or  your  own  will,  but  in  looking  at 
God ;  watching  what  He  does,  what  He  is  ;  and  obeying  His 
law,  and  yielding  yourself  to  His  will. 

You  are  to  be  made  happy  by  ornamer  ts ;  therefore  they 
must  be  the  expression  of  all  this. 

Then  the  proper  material  of  ornament  will  be  whatever 
God  has  created;  and  its  proper  treatment,  that  which  SCCIIH 
in  accordance  with,  or  symbolical  of,  his  laws.  And,  for  mate- 
rial, we  shall  therefore  have,  first,  the  abstract  lines  which  are 


SCULPTURE.  191 

most  frequent  in  nature  ;  and  then,  from  lower  to  higher,  tLo 
whole  range  of  systematized  inorganic  and  oi'ganic  forms 
We  shall  rapidly  glance  in  order  at  their  kinds,  and  however 
absurd  the  elemental  division  of  inorganic  matter  by  the 
ancients  may  seem  to  the  modern  chemist,  it  is  so  grand  and 
simple  for  arrangement  of  external  appearances,  that  I  shall 
here  follow  it ;  noticing  first,  after  Abstract  Lines,  the  inimi- 
table forms  of  the  four  elements,  of  Earth,  Water,  Fire,  and 
Air,  and  then  those  of  animal  organisms. 

It  may  be  convenient  to  have  the  order  stated  k  succession, 
thus : — 

1.  Abstract  Lines. 

2.  Forms  of  Earth  (Crystals). 

3.  Forms  of  Water  (Waves).       « 

4.  Forms  of  Fire  (Flames  and  Rays). 

5.  Forms  of  Air  (Clouds). 

6.  Organic  Forms.     Shells. 

7.  Fish. 

8.  Reptiles  and  Insects. 

9.  Vegetation.     Stems  and  Trunks. 

10.  Vegetation.    Foliage,  Flowers,  and  Fruit. 

11.  Birds. 

12.  Mammalian  Animals  and  Man. 

We  find,  at  the  close  of  the  sixteenth  century,  the  arts  of 
painting  and  sculpture  wholly  devoted  to  entertain  the  indolent 
and  satiate  the  luxurious.  To  eifect  these  noble  ends,  they 
look  a  thousand  different  forms;  painting,  however,  of  course 
being  the  most  complying,  aiming  sometimes  at  mere  amuse- 
ment by  deception  in  landscapes,  or  minute  imitation  of  natural 
objects;  sometimes  giving  more  piquant  excitement  in  battle- 
pieces  full  of  slaughter,  or  revels  deep  in  drunkenness  ;  some 
times  entering  upon  serious  subjects,  for  the  sake  of  grotesque 


]  92  SCULPTUHE. 

fiends  and  picturesque  infernos,  or  that  it  might  introduce 
pretty  children  as  cherubs,  and  handsome  women  as  Magdalene* 
and  Maries  of  Egypt,  or  portraits  of  patrons  in  the  charaetei 
of  the  more  decorous  saints ;  but  more  frequently,  for  direct 
flatteries  of  this  kind,  recurring  to  Pagan  mythology,  and 
painting  frail  ladies  as  goddesses  or  graces,  and  foolish  kings  in 
radiant  apotheosis ;  while,  for  the  earthly  delight  of  the  persons 
whom  it  honored  as  divine,  it  ransacked  the  records  of  luscious 
fable,  and  brought  back,  in  fullest  depth  of  dye  and  flame  of 
fancy,  the  impurest  dreams  of  the  uu-Christian  ages. 

Meanwhile,  the  art  of  sculpture,  less  capable  of  ministering 
to  mere  amusement,  was  more  or  less  reserved  for  the  affecta- 
tions of  taste ;  and  the  study  of  the  classical  statues  introduced 
various  ideas  on  the  subjects  of  "purity,"  "chastity,"  and 
"  dignity,"  such  as  it  was  possible  for  people  to  entertain  who 
were  themselves  impure,  luxurious,  and  ridiculous.  It  is  a 
matter  of  extreme  difficulty  to  explain  the  exact  character  of 
this  modern  sculpturesque  ideal;  but  its  relation  to  the  true 
ideal  may  be  best  understood  by  considering  it  as  in  exact 
parallelism  with  the  relation  of  the  word  "taste"  to  the  word 
"  love."  Wherever  the  word  "  taste"  is  used  with  respect  to 
matters  of  ait,  it  indicates  either  that  the  thing  spoken  of 
belongs  to  some  inferior  class  of  objects,  or  that  the  person 
speaking  has  a  false  conception  of  its  nature.  For,  considei 
the  exact  sense  in  which  a  work  of  art  is  said  to  be  "in  good 
or  bad  taste."  It  does  not  mean  that  it  is  true  or  false  ;  that 
It  is  beautiful  or  ugly ;  but  that  it  does  or  does  not  comply 
either  with  the  laws  of  choice,  which  are  enforced  by  certain 
modes  of  life  ;  or  the  habits  of  mind  produced  by  a  particular 
gort  of  education.  It  does  not  mean  merely  fashionable,  that 
is,  complying  with  a  momentary  caprice  of  the  upper  d 
but  it  means  agreeing  with  the  habitual  sense  which  the  most 
refined  education,  common  to  those  upper  classes  at  the  period 


SCULPTURE.  1 93 

gives  to  their  whole  mind.  Now,  therefore,  so  far  as  that 
education  does  indeed  tend  to  make  the  senses  delicate,  and  the 
perceptions  accurate,  and  thus  enables  people  to  be  pleased 
with  quiet  instead  of  gaudy  color,  and  with  graceful  instead  of 
coarse  form  ;  and,  by  long  acquaintance  with  the  best  things, 
to  discern  quickly  what  is  fine  from  what  is  common ; — so  far, 
acquired  taste  is  an  honorable  faculty,  and  it  is  true  praise  of 
anything  to  say  it  is  "in  good  taste."  But  so  far  as  this 
higher  education  has  a  tendency  to  narrow  the  sympathies  and 
harden  the  heart,  diminishing  the  interest  of  all  beautiful 
vhings  by  familiarity,  until  even  what  is  best  can  hardly  please, 
and  what  is  brightest  hardly  entertain ; — so  far  as  it  fosters 
pride,  and  leads  men  to  found  the  pleasure  they  take  in  any- 
thing, not  on  the  worthiness  of  the  thing,  but  on  the  degree  in 
which  it  indicates  some  greatness  of  their  own  (as  people  build 
marble  porticos,  and  inlay  marble  floors,  not  so  much  because 
they  like  the  colors  of  marble,  or  find  it  pleasant  to  the  foot,  as 
because  such  porches  and  floors  are  costly,  and  separated  in  all 
"human  eyes  from  plain  entrances  of  stone  and  timber) ; — so  far 
as  it  leads  people  to  prefer  gracefulness  of  dress,  manner,  and 
aspect,  to  value  of  substance  and  heart,  liking  a  well  said  thing 
better  than  a  true  thing,  and  a  well  trained  manner  better  than 
a  sincere  one,  and  a  delicately  formed  face  better  than  a  good- 
natured  one,  and  in  all  other  ways  and  things  setting  custom 
and  semblance  above  everlasting  truth ; — so  far,  finally,  as  it 
induces  a  sense  of  inherent  distinction  between  class  and  class, 
and  causes  everything  to  be  more  or  less  despised  which  has 
no  social  rank,  so  that  the  affection,  pleasure,  or  grief  of  a  clown 
are  looked  upon  as  of  no  interest  compared  with  the  affection 
and  grief  of  a  well-bred  man  ; — just  so  far,  in  all  these  several 
ways,  the  feeling  induced  by  \\  hat  is  called  a  "liberal  education" 
is  utterly  adverse  to  the  understanding  of  noble  art ;  and  the 
uame  which  is  given  to  the  feeling, — Taste,  Gout,  Gusto, — in 

9 


194  SCULPTUKK. 

ail  languages,  indicates  the  baseness  of  it,  for  it  implies  that  art 
gives  only  a  kind  of  pleasure  analogous  to  that  derived  from 
eating  by  the  palate. 

Modern  education,  not  in  art  only,  but  in  ah1  other  things 
referable  to  the  same  standard,  has  invariably  given  taste  in 
this  bad  sense ;  it  has  given  fastidiousness  of  choice  without 
judgment,  superciliousness  of  manner  without  dignity,  refine- 
ment of  habit  without  purity,  grace  of  expression  without 
sincerity,  and  desire  of  loveliness  without  love ;  and  the 
modern  "Ideal"  of  high  art  is  a  curious  mingling  of  the  grace- 
fulness and  reserve  of  the  drawing-room  with  a  certain  mea- 
sure of  classical  sensuality.  Of  this  last  element,  and  the 
singular  artifices  by  which  vice  succeeds  in  combining  it  with 
what  appears  to  be  pure  and  severe,  it  would  take  us  long  to 
reason  fully ;  I  would  rather  leave  the  reader  to  follow  out 
for  himself  the  consideration  of  the  influence,  in  this  direction, 
of  statues,  bronzes,  and  paintings,  as  at  present  employed  by 
the  upper  circles  of  London,  and  (especially)  Paris ;  and  this 
not  so  much  in  the  works  which  are  really  fine,  as  in  the  mul- 
tiplied coarse  copies  of  them  ;  taking  the  widest  range,  from 
Dannaeker's  Ariadne  down  to  the  amorous  shepherd  and  shep- 
herdess in  china  on  the  drawing  room  time-piece,  rigidly  ques- 
tioning in  each  case,  how  far  the  charm  of  the  art  does  indeed 
depend  on  some  appeal  to  the  inferior  passions.  Let  it  be 
coTisidered,  for  instance,  exactly  how  far  the  value  of  a  picture 
of  a  girl's  head  by  Greuze  would  be  lowered  in  the  market,  if 
the  dress,  which  now  leaves  the  bosom  bare,  were  raised  to 
the  neck ;  and  how  far,  in  the  commonest  lithograph  of  some 
utterly  popular  subject, — for  instance,  the  teaching  of  Uncle 
Tom  by  Eva — the  sentiment  which  is  supposed  to  be  excited 
by  the  exhibition  of  Christianity  in  youth  is  complicated  with 
that  which  depends  upon  Eva's  having  a  dainty  foot  and  a 
well-made  satin  slipper ;  and  then,  having  completely  deter- 


SCULPTURE.  1 95 

mined  for  himself  how  far  the  element  exists,  ccnsider  farther, 
whether,  when  art  is  thus  frequent  (for  frequent  he  will  assu- 
redly find  it  to  be)  in  its  appeal  to  the  lower  passions,  it  ia 
likely  to  attain  the  highest  order  of  merit,  or  be  judged  by 
the  truest  standards  of  judgment.  For,  of  all  the  causes 
which  have  combined,  in  modern  times,  to  lower  the  rank  of 
art,  I  believe  this  to  be  one  of  the  most  fatal ;  while,  recipro- 
cally, it  may  be  questioned  how  far  society  suffers,  in  its  turn, 
from  the  influences  possessed  over  it  by  the  arts  it  has 
degraded.  It  seems  to  me  a  subject  of  the  very  deepest  inter- 
est to  determine  what  has  been  the  effect  upon  the  European 
nations  of  the  great  change  by  which  art  became  again  capa- 
ble of  ministering  delicately  to  the  lower  passions,  as  it  had  in 
the  worst  clays  of  Rome ;  how  far,  indeed,  in  all  ages,  the  fall 
of  nations  maybe  attributed  to  art's  arriving  at  this  particular 
stage  among  them.  I  do  not  mean  that,  in  any  of  its  stages, 
it  is  incapable  of  being  employed  for  evil,  but  that  assuredly 
an  Egyptian,  Spartan,  or  Xorman  was  unexposed  to  the  kind 
of  temptation  which  is  continually  offered  by  the  delicate 
painting  and  sculpture  of  modern  days;  and,  although  the 
diseased  imagination  might  complete  the  perfect  image  of 
beauty  from  the  colored  image  on  the  wall,*  or  the  most 
revolting  thoughts  be  suggested  by  the  mocking  barbarism  of 
the  Gothic  sculpture,  their  hard  outline  and  rude  execution 
were  free  from  all  the  subtle  treachery  which  now  fills  the 
flushed  canvass  and  the  rounded  marble. 

I  cannot,  however,  pursue  this  inquiry  here.  For  our  pre- 
sent purpose  it  is  enough  to  note  that  the  feeling,  in  itself  so 
debased,  branches  upwards  into  that  of  which,  while  no  one 
has  cause  to  be  ashamed,  no  one,  on  the  other  hand,  has  cause 
to  be  proud,  namely,  the  admiration  of  physical  beauty  in  the 
human  form,  as  distinguished  from  expression  of  character. 

*  Ezek.  xsiii.  14 


196  SCULPTURE. 

Every  one  can  easily  appreciate  the  merit  of  regular  features 
and  well-formed  limbs,  but  it  requires  some  attention,  sympa- 
thy,  and  sense,  to  detect  the  charm  of  passing  expression,  or 
Ufe-disciplined  character.  The  beauty  of  the  Apollo  Belvidere, 
or  Venus  de  Medicis,  is  perfectly  palpable  to  any  shallow  fine 
lady  or  fine  gentleman,  though  they  would  have  perceived 
none  hi  the  face  of  an  old  weather-beaten  St.  Peter,  or  a  grey- 
haired  "  Grandmother  Lois."  The  knowledge  that  long  study 
is  necessary  to  produce  these  regular  types  of  the  human  form 
renders  the  facile  admiration  matter  of  eager  self-complacency ; 
the  shallow  spectator,  delighted  that  he  can  really,  and  with- 
out hypocrisy,  'admire  what  required  much  thought  to  pro- 
duce, supposes  himself  endowed  with  the  highest  critical  facul- 
ties, and  easily  lets  himself  be  carried  into  rhapsodies  about  the 
"ideal,"  which,  when  all  is  said,  if  they  be  accurately  exa- 
mined, will  be  found  literally  to  mean  nothing  more  than 
that  the  figure  has  got  handsome  calves  to  its  legs,  and  a 
straight  nose. 

That  they  do  mean,  in  reality,  nothing  more  than  this  may  be 
easily  ascertained  by  watching  the  taste  of  the  same  persons  La 
other  things.  The  fashionable  lady  who  will  write  five  or  six 
pages  in  her  diary  respecting  the  effect  upon  her  mind  of  such 
and  such  an  "  ideal "  in  marble,  will  have  her  drawing-room 
table  covered  with  Books  of  Beauty,  in  which  the  engravings 
represent  the  human  form  in  every  possible  aspect  of  distortion 
and  aifectation;  and  the  connoisseur  who,  in  the  morning, 
pretends  to  the  most  exquisite  taste  in  the  antique,  will  be  seen, 
in  the  evening,  hi  his  opera-stall,  applauding  the  least  graceful 
gestures  of  the  least  modest  figurante. 

But  even  this  vulgar  pursuit  of  physical  beauty  (viiigar  iii 
ihe  profoundest  sense,  for  there  is  no  vulgarity  like  the  vulgarity 
of  education)  would  be  less  contemptible  if  it  really  succeo  led 
in  its  object;  but,  like  all  pursuits  carried  to  inordinate  length. 


SCULPTURE.  ]  97 

it  defeats  itself.  Physical  beauty  is  a  noble  thing  when  it  is  seen 
in  perfectness ;  but  the  manner  in  which  the  moderns  pursue 
their  ideal  prevents  their  ever  really  seeing  what  they  are 
always  seeking;  for,  requiring  that  all  forms  should  be  regular 
and  faultless,  they  permit,  or  even  compel,  their  painters  and 
sculptors  to  work  chiefly  by  rule,  altering  their  models  to  fit 
their  preconceived  notions  of  what  is  right.  When  such  artista 
look  at  a  face,  they  do  not  give  it  the  attention  necessary  to 
discern  what  beauty  is  already  in  its  peculiar  features;  but 
only  to  see  how  best  it  may  be  altered  into  something  for 
which  they  have  themselves  laid  down  the  laws.  Nature  never 
unveils  her  beauty  to  such  a  gaze.  She  keeps  whatever  she  has 
done  best,  close  sealed,  until  it  is  regarded  with  reverence. 
To  the  painter  who  honors  her,  she  will  open  a  revelation  in  the 
face  of  a  street  mendicant ;  but  in  the  work  of  the  painter  who 
alters  her,  she  will  make  Portia  become  ignoble  and  Perdita 
graceless. 

Nor  is  the  effect  less  for  evil  on  the  mind  of  the  general 
observer.  The  lover  of  ideal  beauty,  with  all  his  conceptions 
narrowed  by  rule,  never  looks  carefully  enough  upon  the  fea- 
tures which  do  not  come  under  his  law  (or  any  others),  to  dis- 
cern the  inner  beauty  hi  them.  The  strange  intricacies  about 
the  lines  of  the  lips,  and  marvellous  shadows  and  watchfires  of 
the  eye,  and  wavering  traceries  of  the  eyelash,  and  infinite 
modulations  of  the  brow,  wherein  high  humanity  is  embodied, 
are  all  invisible  to  him.  He  finds  himself  driven  back  at  last, 
with  all  his  idealism,  to  the  lionne  of  the  ball-room,  whom  youtl. 
and  passion  can  as  easily  distinguish  as  his  utmost  critical 
science  ;  whereas,  the  observer  who  has  accustomed  himself  to 
take  human  faces  as  God  made  them,  will  often  find  as  much 
beauty  on  a  village  green  as  in  the  proudest  room  of  state,  and 
as  much  in  the  free  seats  of  a  church  aisle,  as  in  all  the  sacred 
paintings  of  the  Vatican  or  the  Pitti 


198  SCULPTU11E. 

The  difference  in  the  accuracy  of  the  lines  of  the  Torso  of 
the  Vatican  (the  Maestro  of  M.  Angelo)  from  those  in  one 
of  M.  Angelo's  finest  works,  could  perhaps  scarcely  be  appre- 
ciated by  any  eye  or  feeling  undisciplined  by  the  most  perfect 
and  practical  anatomical  knowledge.  It  rests  on  points  of 
Buch  traceless  and  refined  delicacy,  that  though  we  feel  them 
in  the  result,  we  cannot  follow  them  in  the  details.  Yet  they 
are  such  and  so  great  as  to  place  the  Torso  alone  in  art,  soli- 
tary and  supreme;  while  the  finest  of  M.  Angelo's  works, 
considered  with  respect  to  truth  alone,  are  said  to  be  only  on 
a  level  with  antiques  of  the  second  class,  under  the  Apollo 
and  Venus,  that  is,  two  classes  or  grades  below  the  Torso. 
But  suppose  the  best  sculptor  in  the  world,  possessing  the 
most  entire  appreciation  of  the  excellence  of  the  Torso,  were 
to  sit  down,  pen  in  hand,  to  try  and  tell  us  wherein  the  pecu- 
liar truth  of  each  line  consisted  ?  Could  any  words  that  he 
could  use  make  us  feel  the  hairbreadth  of  depth  and  distance 
on  which  all  depends?  or  end  in  anything  more  than  bare 
assertions  of  the  inferiority  of  this  line  to  that,  which,  if  we 
did  not  perceive  for  ourselves,  no  explanation  could  ever  illus- 
trate to  us  ?  He  might  as  well  endeavor  to  explain  to  us  by 
words  some  taste  or  other  subject  of  sense,  of  which  we  had 
no  experience.  And  so  it  is  with  all  truths  of  the  highest 
order ;  they  are  separated  from  those  of  average  precision  by 
points  of  extreme  delicacy,  which  none  but  the  cultivated  eye 
can  in  the  least  feel,  and  to  express  which,  all  words  are  abso- 
lutely meaningless  and  useless.  So  far  as  the  sight  and  know- 
ledge of  the  human  form,  of  the  purest  race,  exercised  from 
infancy  constantly,  but  not  excessively,  in  all  exercises  of  dig 
nily,  not  in  twists  and  straining  dexterities,  but  in  natural 
exercises  of  running,  casting,  or  riding;  practised  in  endu- 
rance, not  of  extraordinary  hardship,  for  that  hardens  and 
degrades  the  body,  but  of  natural  hardship,  vicissitudes  of 


SCULPTURE.  199 

winter  and  summer,  and  cold  and  heat,  yet  in  a  climate  where 
none  of  these  are  severe  ;  surrounded  also  by  a  certain  degree 
of  right  lu'xury,  so  as  to  soften  and  refine  the  forms  of  strength ; 
so  far  as  the  sight  of  this  could  render  the  mental  intelligence 
of  what  is  right  in  human  form  so  acute  as  to  be  able  to 
abstract  and  combine  from  the  best  examples  so  produced, 
that  which  was  most  perfect  in  each,  so  far  the  Greek  con- 
ceived and  attained  the  ideal  of  bodily  form. 

Form  Ave  find  abstractedly  considered  by  the  sculptor ;  how 
far  it  would  be  possible  to  advantage  a  statue  by  the  addition 
of  color,  I  venture  not  to  affirm ;  the  question  is  too  exten- 
sive to  be  here  discassed.  High  authorities  and  ancient  prac- 
tice, are  in  favor  of  color ;  so  the  sculpture  of  the  middle  ages : 
the  two  statues  of  Mino  da  Fiesole  in  the  church  of  Sta.  Cate- 
rina  at  Pisa  have  been  colored,  the  irises  of  the  eyes  painted 
dark,  awd  the  hair  gilded,  as  also  I  think  the  Madonna  in  Sta. 
Maria  della  Spiua ;  the  eyes  have  been  painted  in  the  sculp- 
tures of  Orcagna  in  Or  San  Michele,  but  it  looks  like  a  rem- 
nant of  barbarism,  (compare  the  pulpit  of  Guida  da  Como,  in 
the  church  of  San  Bartolomeo  at  Pistoja,)  and  I  have  never 
seen  color  on  any  solid  forms,  that  did  not,  to  my  mind,  neu- 
tralize all  other  power ;  the  porcelains  of  Luca  della  Robbia 
are  painful  examples,  and  in  lower  art,  Florentine  mosaic  in 
relief;  gilding  is  more  admissible,  and  tells  sometimes  sweetly 
upon  figures  of  quaint  design,  as  on  the  pulpit  of  Sta.  Maria 
Novella,  while  it  spoils  the  classical  ornaments  of  the  mould- 
ings. But  the  truest  grandeur  of  sculpture  1  believe  to  be  in 
the  white  form. 

It  was  said  by  Michael  Angelo  that  "  non  ha  1'ottimo  scul- 
tore  alcun  concetto,  Ch'un  marmo  solo  in  se  non  circoscriva," 
a  sentence  which,  though  in  the  immediate  sense  intended  by 
the  writer  it  may  remind  us  a  little  of  the  indignation  of  Boi- 


200  SCULPTL'RE. 

lean's  Plato,  u  II  s'ensuit  de  la  que  tout  ce  qui  se  peut  dire  dc 
beau,  est  dans  les  dictionnaires, — il  n'y  a  que  les  paroles  qui 
sont  transposees,"  yet  is  valuable,  because  it  shows  us  that 
Michael  Angelo  held  the  imagination  to  be  entirely  expressible 
in  rock,  and  therefore  altogether  independent,  in  its  own 
nature,  of  those  aids  of  color  and  shade  by  which  it  is  recom 
mended  in  Tintoret,  though  the  sphere  of  its  operation  is  of 
course  by  these  incalculably  extended.  But  the  presence  of 
the  imagination  may  be  rendered  in  marble  as  deep,  thrilling, 
and  awful  as  in  painting,  so  that  the  sculptor  seek  for  the  soul 
and  govern  the  body  thereby. 

Of  unimaginative  work,  Bandinelli  and  Canova  supply 
us  with  characteristic  instances  of  every  kind,  the  Hercules 
and  Cacus  of  the  former,  and  its  criticism  by  Cellini,  will  occur 
at  once  to  every  one  ;  the  disgusting  statue  now  placed  so  aa 
to  conceal  Giotto's  important  tempera  picture  in  SantS  Croce 
is  a  better  instance,  but  a  still  more  important  lesson  might  be 
received  by  comparing  the  inanity  of  Canova's  garland  grace, 
and  ball-room  sentiment  with  the  intense  truth,  tenderness, 
and  power  of  men  like  Mino  da  Fiesole,  whose  chisel  leaves 
many  a  hard  edge,  and  despises  down  and  dimple,  but  it 
seems  to  cut  light  and  carve  breath,  the  marble  burns  beneath 
it,  and  becomes  transparent  with  very  spirit.  Yet  ^Mino 
stopped  at  the  human  nature ;  he  saw  the  soul,  but  not  the 
ghostly  presences  about  it ;  it  was  reserved  for  Michael  An- 
gelo to  pierce  deeper  yet,  and  to  see  the  indwelling  angels. 
No  man's  soul  is  alone :  Laocoon  or  Tobit.  the  serpent  has  it 
by  the  heart  or  the  angel  by  the  hand,  the  light  or  the  fear  of 
the  spiritual  things  that  move  beside  it  may  be  seen  on  the  body, 
and  that  bodily  form  with  Buonaroti,  white,  solid,  distinct  ma- 
terial, though  it  be,  is  invariably  felt  as  the  instrument  or  the 
habitation  of  some  infinite,  invisible  power.  The  earth  of  the 
Sistine  Adam  that  begins  to  burn  ;  the  woman  embodied  burst 


SCULPTURE.  201 

of  adoration  from  his  sleep  ;  the  twelve  great  torrents  of  the 
Spirit  of  God  that  pause  above  us  there,  urned  in  their  vessels 
of  clay;  the  waiting  in  the  shadow  of  futurity  of  those 
through  whom  the  promise  and  presence  of  God  went  down 
from  the  Eve  to  the  Mary,  each  still  and  fixed,  fixed  in  his 
expectation,  silent,  foreseeing,  faithful,  seated  each  on  his 
stony  throne,  the  building  stones  of  the  "word  of  God,  build- 
ing on  and  on,  tier  by  tier,  to  the  Refused  one,  the  head  of 
the  corner ;  not  only  these,  not  only  the  troops  of  terror 
torn  up  from  the  earth  by  the  four  quartered  winds  of  the 
Judgment,  but  every  fragment  and  atom  of  stone  though 
compelled  to  represent  the  Sinai  under  conventional  form,  in 
order  that  the  receiving  of  the  tables  might  be  seen  at  the 
top  of  it,  yet  so  soon  as  it  is  possible  to  give  more  truth,  he  is 
ready  with  it ;  he  takes  a  grand  fold  of  horizontal  cloud 
straight  from  the  flanks  of  the  Alps,  and  shows  the  forests  of 
the  mountains  through  its  misty  volume,  like  sea-weed  through 
deep  sea.  Nevertheless  when  the  realization  is  impossible,  bold 
symbolism  is  of  the  highest  value,  and  in  religious  art,  as  we 
shall  presently  see,  even  necessary,  as  of  the  rays  of  light  in  the 
Titian  woodcut  of  St.  Francis  before  noticed ;  and  sometimes 
the  attention  is  directed  by  some  such  strange  form  to  the  mean- 
ing of  the  image,  which  may  be  missed  if  it  remains  in  its  natu- 
ral purity,  (as,  I  suppose,  few  in  looking  at  the  Cephalus  and 
Procris  of  Turner,  note  the  sympathy  of  those  faint  rays  that 
are  just  drawing  back  and  dying  between  the  trunks  of  the 
far-off  forest,  with  the  ebbing  life  of  the  nymph ;  unless,  in 
deed,  they  happen  to  recollect  the  same  sympathy  marked  by 
Shelley  in  the  Alastor ;)  but  the  imagination  is  not  shown  in 
any  such  modifications ;  however,  in  some  cases  they  may  be 
valuable  (in  the  Cephalus  they  would  be  utterly  destructive), 
and  I  note  them  merely  in  consequence  of  their  peculiar  use 
in  religious  art,  presently  to  be  examined. 

9* 


202  SCULPTURE. 

The  last  mode  we  have  here  to  note,  in  which  the  imagina- 
tion regardant  may  be  expressed  in  art  is  exaggeration,  ol 
which,  as  it  is  the  vice  of  all  bad  artists,  and  may  be  constantly 
resorted  to  without  any  warrant  of  imagination,  it  is  necessary 
to  note  strictly  the  admissible  limits. 

By  compaiing  the  disgusting  convulsions  of  the  Laocoon, 
with  the  Elgin  Theseus,  we  may  obtain  a  general  idea  of  the 
effect  of  the  influence,  as  shown  by  its  absence  in  one,  and 
presence  m  the  other,  of  two  works  which,  as  far  as  artistical 
merit  is  concerned,  are  in  some  measure  parallel,  not  that  I 
believe,  even  in  this  respect,  the  Laocoon  justifiably  comparable 
with  the  Theseus.  I  suppose  that  no  group  has  exercised  so 
pernicious  an  influence  on  art  as  this,  a  subject  ill  chosen, 
meanly  conceived  and  unnaturally  treated,  recommended  to 
imitation  by  subtleties  of  execution  and  accumulation  of  tech- 
nical knowledge. 

I  would  also  have  the  reader  compare  with  the  meagre  lines 
and  contemptible  tortures  of  the  Laocoon,  the  awfulness  and 
quietness  of  M.  Angelo's  treatment  of  a  subject  in  most  respects 
similar,  (the  plague  of  the  Fiery  Serpents,)  but  of  which,  the 
choice  was  justified  both  by  the  place  which  the  event  holds  in 
the  typical  system  he  had  to  arrange,  and  by  the  grandeur  of 
the  plague  itself,  in  its  multitudinous  grasp,  and  its  mystical 
salvation ;  sources  of  sublimity  entirely  wanting  to  the  slaughter 
of  the  Dardan  priest.  It  is  good  to  see  how  his  gigantic  intellect 
reaches  after  repose,  and  truthfully  finds  it,  in  the  falling  hand 
of  the  near  figure,  and  in  the  deathful  decline  of  that  whose 
hands  are  held  up  even  in  their  venomed  coldness  to  the  cross ; 
and  though  irrelevant  to  our  present  purpose,  it  is  well  also  to 
note  how  the  grandeur  of  this  treatment  results,  not  merely 
from  choice,  but  from  a  greater  knowledge  and  more  faithful 
rendering  of  truth.  For  whatever  knowledge  of  the  human 
frame  there  may  be  in  the  Laocoon,  there  is  certainly  none  of 


SCULPTCEE.  203 

the  habits  of  serpents.  The  fixing  of  the  snake's  head  in  the 
side  of  the  principal  figure  is  as  false  to  nature,  as  it  is  poor 
in  composition  of  line.  A  large  serpent  never  wants  to  bite,  il 
wants  to  hold,  it  seizes  therefore  always  where  it  can  hold  best, 
by  the  extremities  or  throat,  it  seizes  once  and  for  ever,  and 
hat  before  it  coils,  following  up  the  seizure  with  the  twist  oi 
its  body  round  the  victim,  as  invisibly  swift  as  the  twist  "of  a 
whip  lash  round  any  hard  object  it  may  strike,  and  then  it 
holds  fast,  never  moving  the  jaws  or  the  body ;  if  its  prey  has 
any  power  of  struggling  left,  it  throws  round  another  coil, 
without  quitting  the  hold  with  the  jaws ;  if  Laocoon  had  had 
to  do  with  real  serpents,  instead  of  pieces  of  tape  with  heads 
to  them,  he  would  have  been  held  still,  and  not  allowed  to 
throw  his  arms  or  legs  about.  It  is  most  instructive  to  observe 
the  accuracy  of  Michael  Angelo  in  the  rendering  of  these  cir- 
cumstances; the  binding  of  the  arms  to  the  body,  and  the 
knotting  of  the  whole  mass  of  agony  together,  until  we  hear  the 
crashing  of  the  bones  beneath  the  grisly  sliding  of  the  engine 
folds.  Note  also  the  expression  in  all  the  figures  of  another 
circumstance,  the  torpor  and  cold  numbness  of  the  limbs 
induced  by  the  serpent  venom,  which,  though  justifiably  over- 
looked by  the  sculptor  of  the  Laocoon,  as  well  as  by  Virgil — 
hi  consideration  of  .the  rapidity  of  the  death  by  crushing,  adds 
infinitely  to  the  power  of  the  Florentine's  conception,  and  would 
have  been  better  hinted  by  Virgil,  than  that  sickening  distri- 
bution of  venom  on  the  garlands.  In  fact,  Virgil  has  missed 
both  of  truth  and  impressiveness  every  way — the  "morsu 
depascitur"  is  unnatural  butchery — the  "perfusus  veneno" 
gratuitous  foulness — the  "clamores  horrendos,"  impossible 
degradation  ;  compare  carefully  the  remarks  on  this  statue  in 
Sir  Charles  Bell's  Essay  on  Expression,  (third  edition,  p.  192,) 
where  he  has  most  wisely  and  uncontrovertibly  deprived  the 
statue  of  all  claim  to  expression  of  energy  ind  fortitude  of 


204  SCULPTURE. 

mind,  and  shown  its  common  and  coarse  intent  of  mere  bodily 
exertion  and  agony,  while  he  has  confirmed  Payne  Knight's 
just  condemnation  of  the  passage  in  Virgil. 

If  the  reader  wishes  to  see  the  opposite  or  imaginative  view 
of  the  subject,  let  him  compare  Winkelmann;  and  Schiller, 
Lotters  on  ^Esthetic  Culture. 

Whenever,  in  monumental  work,  the  sculptor  reaches  a 
deceptive  appearance  of  life  or  death,  or  of  concomitant  details, 
he  has  gone  too  far.  The  statue  should  be  felt  for  such,  not 
look  like  a  dead  or  sleeping  body ;  it  should  not  convey  the 
impression  of  a  corpse,  nor  of  sick  and  outwearied  flesh,  but  it 
should  be  the  marble  image  of  death  or  weariness.  So  the 
concomitants  should  be  distinctly  marble,  severe  and  monu- 
mental in  their  lines,  not  shroud,  not  bedclothes,  not  actual 
armor  nor  brocade,  not  a  real  soft  pillow,  not  a  downright  hard 
stuffed  mattress,  but  the  mere  type  and  suggestion  of  these : 
a  certain  rudeness  and  incompletion  of  finish  is  very  noble  in 
all.  Not  that  they  are  to  be  unnatural,  such  lines  as  are  given 
should  be  pure  and  true,  and  clear  of  the  hardness  and  mannered 
rigidity  of  the  strictly  Gothic  types,  but  lines  so  few  and  grand 
as  to  appeal  to  the  imagination  only,  and  always  to  stop  short 
of  realization.  There  is  a  monument  put  up  lately  by  a  modern 
Italian  sculptor  in  one  of  the  side  chapels  of  Santa  Croce,  the 
face  fine  and  the  execution  dexterous.  But  it  looks  as  if  the 
person  had  been  restless  all  night,  and  the  artist  admitted  to  a 
faithful  study  of  the  disturbed  bedclothes  in  the  morning. 

No  herculean  form  is  spiritual,  for  it  is  degrading  the  spiri- 
tual creature  to  suppose  it  operative  through  impulse  of  bone 
and  sinew;  its  power  is  immaterial  and  constant,  neither 
dependent  on,  nor  developed  by  exertion.  Generally,  it  is  well 
to  conceal  anatomical  development  as  far  as  may  be ;  even 
Michael  Angelo's  anatomy  interferes  with  his  divinity;  in  the 


SCULPTURE.  205 

hands  of  lower  men  the  angel  becomes  a  preparation.  How 
far  it  is  possible  to  subdue  or  generalize  the  naked  form  ] 
venture  not  to  affirm,  but  I  believe  that  it  is  best  to  conceal  it 
as  far  as  may  be,  not  with  draperies  light  and  undulating,  that 
fall  in  with,  and  exliibit  its  principal  lines,  but  with  draperies 
severe  and  linear,  such  as  were  constantly  employed  before  the 
time  of  Raffaelle.  I  recollect  no  single  instance  of  a  naked 
angel  that  does  not  look  boylike  or  childlike,  and  unspiritual- 
ized ;  even  Fra  Bartolomeo's  might  with  advantage  be  spared 
from  the  pictures  at  Lucca,  and  in  the  hands  of  inferior  men, 
the  sky  is  merely  encumbered  with  sprawling  infants  ;  those  of 
Domenichino  in  the  Madonna  del  Rosario,  and  Martyrdom  of 
St.  Agnes,  are  peculiarly  offensive,  studies  of  bare-legged 
children  howling  and  kicking  in  volumes  of  smoke.  Confusion 
seems  to  exist  in  the  minds  of  subsequent  painters  between 
Angels  and  Cupids. 

The  sculptor  does  not  work  for  the  anatomist,  but  for  the 
common  observer  of  life  and  nature.  Yet  the  sculptor  is  not, 
for  this  reason,  permitted  to  be  wanting  either  in  knowledge 
or  expression  of  anatomical  detail ;  and  the  more  refined  that 
expression  can  be  rendered,  the  more  perfect  is  his  work 
That  which,  to  the  anatomist,  is  the  end, — is,  to  the  sculptor, 
the  means.  The  former  desires  details,  for  their  own  sake ; 
the  latter,  that  by  means  of  them,  he  may  kindle  his  work 
with  life,  and  stamp  it  with  beauty. 

A  colossal  statue  is  necessarily  no  more  an  exaggeration  of 
what  it  represents  than  a  miniature  is  a  diminution ;  it  need  not 
be  a  representation  of  a  giant,  but  a  representation,  on  a  large 
scale,  of  a  man  ;  only  it  is  to  be  observed,  that  as  any  plane 
intersecting  the  cone  of  rays  between  us  and  the  object,  must 
receive  an  image  smaller  than  the  object ;  a  small  image  ia 
rationally  and  completely  expressive  of  a  larger  one;  but  not 
a  large  of  a  small  one.  Henoe  I  think  that  all  statues  above 


206  SCULPTURE. 

the  Elgin  standard,  or  that  of  Michael  Angelo's  Night  and 
Morning,  are,  vn  a  measure,  taken  by  the  eye  for  representa- 
tions of  giants. 

Michael  Angelo  was  once  commanded  by  Pietro  di  Medici  to 
mould  a  statue  out  of  snow,  and  he  obeyed  the  command.  I  am 
glad,  and  we  have  all  reason  to  be  glad,  that  such  a  fancy  ever 
came  into  the  mind  of  the  unworthy  prince,  and  for  this  cause: 
that  Pietro  di  Medici  then  gave,  at  the  period  of  one  great 
epoch  of  consummate  power  in  the  arts,  the  perfect,  accurate, 
and  intensest  possible  type  of  the  greatest  error  which  nations 
and  princes  can  commit,  respecting  the  power  of  genius 
entrusted  to  their  guidance.  You  had  there,  observe,  the 
strongest  genius  in  the  most  perfect  obedience ;  capable  of  iron 
independence,  yet  wholly  submissive  to  the  patron's  will ;  at 
once  the  riiost  highly  accomplished  and  the  most  original, 
capable  of  doing  as  much  as  man  could  do,  in  any  direction 
that  man  could  ask.  And  its  governor,  and  guide,  and  patron 
sets  it  to  build  a  statue  in  snow — to  put  itself  into  the  service 
of  annihilation — to  make. a  cloud  of  itself,  an  1  pass  away  from 
the  earth. 

Now  this,  so  precisely  and  completely  done  by  Pietro  di 
Medici,  is  what  we  are  all  doing,  exactly  hi  the  degree  in  which 
we  direct  the  genius  under  our  patronage  to  work  in  more  or 
less  perishable  materials.  So  far  as  we  induce  painters  to  work 
hi  fading  colors,  or  architects  to  build  with  imperfect  structure 
or  in  any  other  way  consult  only  immediate  ease  and  cheapness 
in  the  production  of  what  we  want,  to  the  exclusion  of  provident 
thought  as  to  its  permanence  and  serviceableness  in  after  ages; 
BO  for  we  are  forcing  our  Michael  Angelos  to  carve  in  snow; 
The  first  duty  of  the  economist  in  art  is,  to  see  that  no 
intellect  shall  thus  glitter  merely  in  the  manner  of  hoar-frost ; 
but  that  it  shall  be  well  vitrified,  like  a  painted  window,  and 


SCULPTUKE.  207 

.' 

shall  be  set  so  between  shafts  of  stone  and  bands  of  iron, 
that  it  shall  bear  the  sunshine  upon  it,  and  send  the  sunshine 
through  it  from  generation  to  generation. 

How  are  we  to  get  our  men  of  genius :  that  is  to  say,  by 
what  means  may  we  produce  among  us,  at  any  given  time,  the 
greatest  quantity  of  effective  art-intellect  ?  A  wide  question, 
you  say,  involving  an  account  of  all  the  best  means  of  art 
education.  Yes,  but  I  do  not  mean  to  go  into  the  consideration 
of  those ;  I  want  only  to  state  the  few  principles  which  lie  at 
the  foundation  of  the  matter.  Of  these,  the  first  is  that  yoc 
have  always  to  find  your  artist,  not  to  make  him;  you  can't 
manufacture  him,  any  more  than  you  can  manufacture  gold. 
You  can  find  him,  and  refine  him:  you  dig' him  out  as  he  liea 
nugget-fashion  in  the  mountain-stream ;  you  bring  him  home ; 
and  you  make  him  into  current  coin,  or  household  plate,  but 
not  one  grain  of  him  can  you  originally  produce.  A  certain 
quantity  of  art-intellect  is  born  annually  in  every  nation,  greater 
or  less  according  to  the  nature  and  cultivation  of  the  nation,  or 
race  of  men ;  but  a  perfectly  fixed  quantity  annually,  not 
increasable  by  one  grain.  You  may  lose  it,  or  you  may  gather 
it ;  you  may  let  it  lie  loose  in  the  ravine,  and  buried  in  the 
sands,  or  you  may  make  kings'  thrones  of  it,  and  overlay 
temple  gates  with  it,  as  you  choose ;  but  the  best  you  can  do 
with  it  is  always  merely  sifting,  melting,  hammering,  purifying 
— never  creating.  And  there  is  another  thing  notable  about 
this  artistical  gold;  not  only  is  it  limited  in  quantity,  but  in  use. 
You  need  not  make  thrones. or  golden  gates  with  it  unless  you 
like,  but  assuredly  you  can't  do  anything  else  with  it.  Yon 
can't  make  knives  of  it,  nor  armour,  nor  railroads.  The  gold 
won't  cut  you,  and  it  won't  carry  you ;  put  it  to  a  mechanical 
use,  and  you  destroy  it  at  once.  It  is  quite  true  that  in  the 
greatest  artists,  their  proper  artistical  faculty  is  united  with 
3 very  other  •  and  3  ou  may  make  use  of  the  other  faculties,  and 


208  SCULPTURE. 

let  the  artistical  one  lie  dormant.  For  aught  I  know  there  may 
be  two  or  three  Leonardo  da  Vincis  employed  at  this  moment 
in  your  harbors  and  railroads:  but  you  are  not  employing 
their  Leonardesque  or  golden  faculty  there,  you  are  only 
oppressing  and  destroying  it.  And  the  artistical  gift  m  average 
men  is  not  joined  with  others ;  your  born  painter,  if  you  don't 
make  a  painter  of  him,  won't  be  a  first-rate  merchant,  or 
lawyer ;  at  all  events,  whatever  he  turns  out,  his  o  svn  special 
gift  is  unemployed  by  you  ;  and  in  no  wise  helps  him  in  that 
other  business.  So  here  you  have  a  certain  quantity  of  a  par- 
ticular sort  of  intelligence,  produced  for  you  annually  by 
providential  laws,  which  you  can  only  make  use  of  by  setting 
it  to  its  own  proper  work,  and  which  any  attempt  to  use 
otherwise  involves  the  dead  loss  of  so  much  human  energy. 

I  believe  that  much  of  the  best  artistical  intellect  is  daily 
lost  in  other  avocations.  Generally,  the  temper  which  would 
make  an  admirable  artist  is  humble  and  observant,  capable  of 
taking  much  interest  in  little  things,  and  of  entertaining  itself 
pleasantly  in  the  dullest  circumstances.  Suppose,  added  to 
these  characters,  a  steady  conscientiousness  which  seeks  to  do 
its  duty  wherever  it  may  be  placed,  and  the  power,  denied  to 
few  artistical  minds,  of  ingenious  invention  in  almost  any  practi- 
cal department  of  human  skill,  and  it  can  hardly  be  doubted 
that  the  very  humility  and  conscientiousness  which  would  have 
perfected  the  painter,  have  in  many  instances  prevented  his 
becoming  one  ;  and  that  in  the  quiet  life  of  our  steady  crafts- 
men— sagacious  manufacturers,  and  uncomplaining  clerks — 
there  may  frequently  be  concealed  more  genius  than  ever  Lv 
raised  to  the  direction  of  our  public  works,  or  to  be  the  mark 
of  our  public  praises. 

Ornamentation  is  the  principal  part  of  architecture,  consi- 
dered as  a  subject  of  fine  art. 


SCULPTURE.  209 

Now  observe.  It  will  at  once  follow  from  this  principle, 
that  a  great  architect  must  be  a  great  sculptor  or  painter. 

This  is  a  universal  law.  No  person  who  is  not  a  great  sculp- 
tor or  painter  can  be  an  architect.  If  he  is  not  a  sculptor  or 
painter,  he  can  only  be  a  builder. 

The  three  greatest  architects  hitherto  known  in  the  world 
were  Phidias,  Giotto,  and  Michael  Angelo ;  with  all  of  whom, 
architecture  was  only  their  play,  sculpture  and  painting  their 
work.  All  great  works  of  architecture  in  existence  are  either 
the  work  of  single  sculptors  or  painters,  or  of  societies  of  sculp- 
tors and  painters,  acting  collectively  for  a  series  of  years.  A 
Gothic  cathedral  is  properly  to  be  defined  as  a  piece  of  the 
most  magnificent  associative  sculpture,  arranged  on  the  noblest 
principles  of  building,  for  the  service  and  delight  of  multitudes ; 
and  the  proper  definition  of  architecture,  as  distinguished  from 
sculpture,  is  merely  "the  art  of  designing  sculpture  for  a  par- 
ticular place,  and  placing  it  there  on  the  best  principles  of 
building." 

Hence  it  clearly  follows,  that  in  modern  days  we  have  no 
architects.  The  term  "  architecture  "  is  not  so  much  as  under- 
stood by  us.  I  am  very  sorry  to  be  compelled  to  the  dis- 
courtesy of  stating  tbis  fact,  but  a  fact  it  is,  and  a  fact  wliich 
it  is  necessary  to  state  strongly. 


JJart  5. 


Painting,  with  all  its  technicalities,  difficulties,  and  particular-  ends,  is 
nothing  but  a  noble  and  expressive  language,  invaluable  as  the  vehicle  ol 
thought,  but  by  itself  nt  thing. 


Jar!  5. 

PAINTING. 

CHARACTEUISTTCS    OF    "  GKEATNESS    OF   STYLE "    IN   PAINTING. 

i 

I.  CHOICE  OF  NOBLE  SUBJECT. — Greatness  of  style  consists 
then :  first,  in  the  habitual  choice  of  subjects  of  thought  which 
involve  wide  interests  and  profound  passions,  as  opposed  to 
those  which  involve  narrow  interests  and  slight  passions.  The 
style  is  greater  or  less  in  exact  proportion  to  the  nobleness  of 
the  interests  and  passions  involved  in  the  subject.  The 
habitual  choice  of  sacred  subjects,  such  as  the  Nativity,  Trans- 
figuration, Crucifixion  (if  the  choice  be  sincere),  implies  that 
the  painter  has  a  natural  disposition  to  dwell  on  the  highest 
thoughts  of  which  humanity  is  capable ;  it  constitutes  him  so 
far  forth  a  painter  of  the  highest  order,  as,  for  instance,  Leo- 
nardo, in  his  painting  of  the  Last  Supper :  he  who  delights  in 
representing  the  acts  or  meditations  of  great  men,  as,  for 
instance,  Raphael  painting  the  School  of  Athens,  is,  so  far 
forth,  a  painter  of  the  second  order :  he  who  represents  the 
passions  and  events  of  ordinary  life,  of  the  third.  And  in  this 
ordinary  life,  he  who  represents  deep  thoughts  and  sorrows, 
as,  for  instance,  Hunt,  in  his  Claudio  and  Isabella,  and  such 
other  works,  is  of  the  highest  rank  in  his  sphere ;  and  he  who 
represents  the  slight  malignities  and  passions  of  the  drawing- 
room,  as,  for  instance,  Leslie,  of  the  second  rank :  he  who 
represents  the  sports  of  boys  or  simplicities  of  clowns,  as 
Webster  or  Teniers,  of  the  third  rank ;  and  he  who  represents 


214  PAINTING. 

brutalities  and  vices  (for  delight  in  them,  and  not  for  rebuke 
of  them),  of  no  rank  at  all,  or  rather  of  a  negative  rank,  hold- 
big  a  certain  order  in  the  abyss. 

The  reader  will,  I  hope,  understand  how  much  importance 
is  to  be  attached  to  the  sentence  in  the  first  parenthesis,  "  if 
the  choice  be  sincere;"  for  choice  of  subject  is,  of  course,  only 
available  as  a  criterion  of  the  rank  of  the  painter,  when  it  ia 
made  from  the  heart.  Indeed,  in  the  lower  orders  of  paint- 
ing, the  choice  is  always  made  from  such  heart  as  the  painter 
has ;  for  his  selection  of  the  brawls  of  peasants  or  sports  ot 
children  can,  of  course,  proceed  only  from  the  fact  that  he 
has  more  sympathy  with  such  brawls  or  pastimes  than  with 
nobler  subjects.  But  the  choice  of  the  higher  kind  of  subjects 
is  often  insincere ;  and  may,  therefore,  afford  no  real  criterion 
of  the  painter's  rank. 

It  must  be  remembered,  that  in  nearly  all  the  great  periods 
of  art  the  choice  of  subject  has  not  been  left  to  the  painter. 
His  employer, — abbot,  baron,  or  monarch, — determined  for 
him  whether  he  should  earn  his  bread  by  making  cloisters 
bright  with  choirs  of  saints,  painting  coats  of  arms  on  'eaves 
of  romances,  or  decorating  presence-chambers  with  compli- 
mentary mythology ;  and  his  own  personal  feelings  are  ascer 
tainable  only  by  watching,  in  the  themes  assigned  to 
him,  what  are  the  points  in  which  he  seems  to  take  most 
pleasure. 

II.  LOVE  OF  BEAUTY. — The  second  characteristic  of  the 
great  school  of  art  is,  that  it  introduces  in  the  conception  of  its 
subject  as  much  beauty  as  is  possible,  consistently  with  truth.* 

*  As  here,  for  the  first  time,  I  am  obliged  to  use  the  terms  Truth  anJ 

in  a  kind   of  opposition,  I   must  therefore   stop  for  a  moment  to 

Btute   clearly   the   relation   of  these   two   qualities  of  art;  and  to   protest 

against  the  vulgar  and  foolish  habit  of  confusing  truth   and  beauty  with 

each  other.     People  with  shallow  powers  of  thought,  desiring  to  natter  them- 


CHARACTERISTICS    OF    "GREATNESS   OF   STYLE."         215 

For  instance,  in   any  subject  consisting  of  a  number  of 
figures,  it  will  make  as  many  of  those  figures  beautiful  as  the 

selves  with  the  sensation  of  having  attained  profundity,  are  continually  djing 
the  most  serious  mischief  by  introducing  confusion  into  plain  matters,  and 
then  valuing  themselves  on  being  confounded.  Nothing  is  more  common 
than  to  hear  people  who  desire  to  be  thought  philosophical,  declare  that 
"beauty  is  truth,"  and  "truth  is  beauty."  1  would  most  earnestly  bqg  every 
sensible  person  who  hears  such  an  assertion  made,  to  nip  the  germinating 
philosopher  in  his  ambiguous  bud ;  and  beg  him,  if  he  really  believes  his  own 
assertion,  never  thenceforward  to  use  two  words  for  the  same  thing.  The 
fact  is,  truth  and  beauty  are  entirely  distinct,  though  often  related  things. 
One  is  a  property  of  statements,  the  other  of  objects.  The  statement  that 
"two  and  two  make  four"  is  true,  but  it  is  neither  beautiful  nor  ugly,  for  it 
is  invisible;  a  rose  is  lovely,  but  it  is  neither  true  nor  false,  for  it  is  silent. 
That  wliich  shows  nothing  cannot  be  fair,  and  that  which  asserts  nothing  can- 
not be  false.  Even*  the  ordinary  use  of  the  words  false  and  true  as  applied  to 
artificial  and  real  things,  is  inaccurate.  An  artificial  rose  ia  not  a  "false"  rose, 
it  is  not  a  rose  at  all.  The  falseness  is  in  the  person  who  states,  or  induces 
the  belief,  that  it  is  a  rose. 

Now,. therefore,  in  things  concerning  art,  the  words  true  and  false  are  onlj 
to  be  rightly  used,  while  the  picture  is  considered  as  a  statement  of  facta 
The  painter  asserts  that  this  which  he  has  painted  is  the  form  of  a  dog,  a  man, 
or  a  tree.  If  it  be  not  the  form  of  a  dog,  a  man,  or  a  tree,  the  painter's 
statement  is  false;  and  therefore  we  justly  speak  of  a  false  line,  or  false 
color;  not  that  any  line  or  color  can  hi  themselves  be  false,  but  they 
become  so  when  they  convey  a  statement  that  they  resemble  something 
which  they  do  not  resemble.  But  the  beauty  of  the  lines  or  colors  is 
wholly  independent  of  any  such  statement  They  may  be  beautiful  lines, 
though  quite  inaccurate,  and  ugly  lines  though  quite  faithful.  A  picture 
may  be  frightfully  ugly,  which  represents  with  fidelity  some  base  circum- 
stance of  daily  life;  and  a  painted  window  may  be  exquisitely  beautiful, 
which  lepresents  men  with  eagles'  faces,  and  dogs  with  blue  heads  and  crim- 
son tails  (though  by  the  way,  this  is  not  in  the  strict  sense  jalse  art,  as  we 
Ehall  see  hereafter,  inasmuch  as  it  means  no  assertion  that  men  ever  had 
eagles'  faces').  If  this  were  not  so,  it  would  be  impossible  to  sacrifice  truth  to 
beauty ;  for  to  attain  the  one  would  always  be  to  attain  the  other.  But, 
unfortunately,  this  sacrifice  is  exceedingly  possible,  and  it  is  chiefly  this  >vhich 


216  PAINTING. 

faithful  representation  of  humanity  will  admit  It  will  not 
deny  the  facts  of  ugliness  or  decrepitude,  or  relative  inferior- 
ity and  superiority  of  feature  as  necessarily  manifested  in  a 
crowd,  but  it  will,  so  far  as  it  is  in  its  power,  seek  for  and 
dwell  upon  the  fairest  forms,  and  in  all  things  insist  on  the 
beauty  that  is  in  them,  not  on  the  ugliness.  In  this  respect, 
schools  of  art  become  higher  in  exact  proportion  to  the  degree 
in  which  they  apprehend  and  love  the  beautiful.  Thus, 
Angelico,  intensely  loving  all  spiritual  beauty,  will  be  of  the 
highest  rank ;  and  Paul  Veronese  and  Correggio,  intensely 
loving  physical  and  corporeal  beauty,  of  the  second  rank  ;  and 
[Albert  Durer,  Rubens,  and  in  general  the  Northern  artists 
apparently  insensible  to  beauty,  and  caring  only  for  truth, 
whether  shapely  or  not,  of  the  third  rank ;  and  Teniers  and 
Salvator,  Caravaggio,  and  other  such  worshippers  of  the 
depraved,  of  no  rank,  or,  as  we  said  before,  of  a  certain 
order  in  the  abyss. 

The  corruption  of  the  schools  of  high  art,  so  far  as  this 
particular  quality  is  concerned,  consists  in  the  sacrifice  of 
truth  to  beauty.  Great  art  dwells  on  all  that  is  beautiful ;  but 
false  art  omits  or  changes  all  that  i.9  ugly.  Great  art  accepts 
Nature  as  she  is,  but  directs  the  eyes  and  thoughts  to  what  is 
most  perfect  in  her ;  false  art  saves  itself  the  trouble  of  direc- 
tion by  removing  or  altering  whatever  it  thinks  objectionable. 
The  evil  results  of  which  proceeding  are  twofold. 

First.    That  beauty  deprived  of  its  proper  foils  and  adjuncts 

characterises  the  false  schools  of  high  art,  so  far  as  high  art  consists  in  the 
pursuit  of  beauty.  For  although  truth  and  beauty  are  independent  of  each 
ether,  it  does  not  follow  that  we  are  at  liberty  to  pursue  whichever  we  please 
They  are  indeed  separable,  but  it  is  wrong  to  separate  them  ;  they  are  to  be 
scught  together  in  the  order  of  their  worthiness :  that  is  to  say,  truth  first, 
nnd  beauty  afterwards.  High  art  differs  from  low  art  in  possessing  an  excess 
of  beauty  in  addition  to  its  truth,  not  in  possessing  an  excess  of  beauty  incon- 
sistent with  truth. 


CHABACTER1STICS   OF    "GREATNESS   OF   STYLE."  21 7 

ceases  to  be  enjoyed  as  beauty,  just  as  light  deprived  of  all 
shadow  ceases  to  be  enjoyed  as  light.  A  white  canvass  can- 
not produce  an  effect  of  sunshine  ;  the  painter  must  darken  it 
in  some  places  before  he  can  make  it  look  luminous  in  others  ; 
nor  can  an  uninterrupted  succession  of  beauty  produce  the 
true  effect  of  beauty ;  it  must  be  foiled  by  inferiority  before 
its  o\\n  power  can  be  developed.  Nature  has  for  the  most 
part  mingled  her  inferior  and  nobler  elements  as  she  mingles 
sunshine  with  shade,  giving  due  use  and  influence  to  both,  and 
the  painter  \\lio  chooses  to  remove  the  shadow,  perishes  in 
the  burning  desert  he  has  created.  The  truly  high  and  beau- 
tiful art  of  Angelico  is  continually  refreshed  and  strengthened 
by  his  frank  portraiture  of  the  most  ordinary  features *of  his 
brother  monks,  and  of  the  recorded  peculiarities  of  ungainly 
sanctity  ;  but  the  modern  German  and  Raphaelesque  schools 
lose  all  honor  and  nobleness  in  barber-like  admiration  of  hand- 
some faces,  and  have,  in  fact,  no  real  faith  except  in  straight 
noses  and  curled  hair.  Paul  Veronese  opposes  the  dwarf  to  the 
soldier,  and  the  negress  to  the  queen ;  Shakspere  places  Cali- 
ban beside  Miranda,  and  Autolycus  beside  Perdita ;  but  th« 
vulgar  idealist  withdraws  his  beauty  to  the  safety  of  the 
saloon,  and  his  innocence  to  the  seclusion  of  the  cloister ;  he 
pretends  that  he  does  this  in  delicacy  of  choice  and  purity  of 
sentiment,  while  in  truth  he  has  neither  courage  to  front  the 
monster,  nor  wit  enough  to  furnish  the  knave. 

It  is  only  by  the  habit  of  representing  faithfully  all  things, 
that  we  can  truly  learn  what  is  beautiful  and  what  is  not. 
The  ugliest  objects  contain  some  element  of  beauty;  and  in 
all,  it  is  an  element  peculiar  to  themselves,  which  cannot  be 
separated  from  their  ugliness,  but  must  cither  be  enjoyed 
together  with  it,  or  not  at  all.  The  more  a  painter  accepts 
nature  as  he  finds  it,  the  more  unexpected  beauty  he  discovers 
in  what  he  at  first  despised ;  but  once  let  him  arrogate  the 

10 


218  FAINTING. 

right  of  rejection,  and  he  will  gradually  contract  his  circle  of 
enjoyment,  until  what  he  supposed  to  be  nobleness  of  selec-  -, 
tion  ends  in  narrowness  of  perception.  Dwelling  perpetually 
upon  one  class  of  ideas,  his  art  becomes  at  once  monstrous" 
and  morbid ;  until  at  last  he  cannot  faithfully  represent  even 
what  he  chooses  to  retain;  his  discrimination  contracts  into 
darkness,  and  his  fastidiousness  fades  into  fatuity. 

High  ait,  therefore,  consists  neither  in  altering,  nor  in  im- 
proving nature ;  but  in  seeking  throughout  nature  for  "  what- 
soever things  are  lovely,  and  whatsoever  things  are  pure ;"  in 
loving  these,  in  displaying  to  the  utmost  of  the  painter's  power 
such  loveliness  as  is  in  them,  and  directing  the  thoughts  of 
others  to  them  by  winning  art,  or  gentle  emphasis.  Of  the 
degree  in  which  this  can  be  done,  and  in  which  it  may  be  per- 
mitted to  gather  together,  without  falsifying,  the  finest  forma 
or  thoughts,  so  as  to  create  a  sort  of  perfect  vision,  we  shall 
have  to  speak  hereafter:  at  present,  it  is  enough  to  remember 
that  art  (cceteris  paribus)  is  great  in  exact  proportion  to  the 
love  of  beauty  shown  by  the  painter,  provided  that  love  of 
beauty  forfeit  no  atom  of  truth 

III.  SINCERITY. — The  next*  characteristic  of  great  art  is  that 
tt  includes  the  largest  possible  quantity  of  Truth  in  the  most 
perfect  possible  harmony.  If  it  were  possible  for  art  to  give 
all  the  truths  of  nature,  it  ought  to  do  it.  But  this  is  not 
possible.  Choice  must  always  be  made  of  some  facts  which 
can  be  represented,  from  among  others  which  must  be  passed 
by  in  silence,  or  even,  in  some  respects,  misrepresented.  The 
inferior  artist  chooses  unimportant  and  scattered  truths ;  the 
great  artist  chooses  the  most  necessary  first,  and  afterwards 
the  most  consistent  with  these,  so  as  to  obtain  the  greatest 
possible  and  most  harmonious  sum.  For  instance,  Rembrandt 

*  I  name  them  in  order  of  increasing  not  decreasing  importance. 


CHARACTERISTICS   OF    "GREATNESS   OF   STYLE.'  219 

always  chooses  to  represent  the  exact  force  with  which  the 
light  on  the  most  illumined  part  of  an  object  is  opposed  to  its 
obscurer  portions.  In  order  to  obtain  this,  in  most  cases,  not 
very  important  truth,  he  sacrifices  the  light  and  color  of  five- 
sixths  of  his  picture ;  and  the  expression  of  every  character 
of  objects  which  depends  on  tenderness  of  shape  or  tint.  But 
he  obtains  his  single  truth,  and  what  picturesque  and  forcible 
expression  is  dependent  upon  it,  with  magnificent  skill  and 
subtlety.  Veronese,  on  the  contrary,  chooses  to  represent  the 
great  relations  of  visible  things  to  each  other,  to  the  heaven 
above,  and  to  the  earth  beneath  them.  He  holds  it  more 
important  to  show  how  a  figure  stands  relieved  from  delicate 
air,  or  marble  wall ;  how  as  a  red,  or  purple,  or  white  figure,  it 
separates  itself,  in  clear  discernibility,  from  things  not  red,  nor 
purple,  nor  white ;  how  infinite  daylight  shines  round  it ;  how 
innumerable  veils  of  faint  shadow  invest  it ;  how  its  black 
ness  and  darkness  are,  in  the  excess  of  their  nature,  just 
as  limited  and  local  as  its  intensity  of  light :  all  this,  I  say, 
he  feels  to  be  more  important  than  showing  merely  the 
exact  measure  of  the  spark  of  sunshine  that  gleaius  on  a 
dagger-hilt. 

As  its  greatness  depends  on  the  sum  of  truth,  and  this  sum 
of  truth  can  always  be  increased  by  delicacy  of  handling,  it 
follows  that  all  great  art  must  have  this  delicacy  to  the  utmost 
possible  degree.  This  rule  is  infallible  and  inflexible.  All 
coarse  work  is  the  sign  of  low  art.  Only,  it  is  to  be  remem- 
bered, that  coarseness  must  be  estimated  by  the  distance  from 
the  eye;  it  being  necessary  to  consult  this  distance,  when 
groat,  by  laying  on  touches  which  appear  coarse  when  seen 
near ;  but  which,  so  far  from  being  coarse,  are,  in  reality,  more 
delicate  in  a  master's  work  than  the  finest  close  handling, 
for  they  involve  a  calculation  of  result,  and  are  laid  on  with  a 
subtlety  of  sense  precise  y  correspondent  to  that  with  which  a 


220  PAINTIXQ. 

good  archer  draws  his  bow ;  the  spectator  seeing  in  the  av.'ti 
nothing  but  the  strain  of  the  strong  arm,  while  there  is,  in 
reality,  in  the  finger  and  eye,  an  ineffably  delicate  estimate  of 
distance,  and  touch  on  the  arrow  plume.  And,  indeed,  this 
delicacy  is  generally  quite  perceptible  to  those  who  know 
•what  the  truth  is,  for  strokes  by  Tintoret  or  Paul  Veronese, 
wh  jh  were  done  in  an  instant,  and  look  to  an  ignorant  spec- 
tator merely  like  a  violent  dash  of  loaded  color  (and  are,  as 
such,  imitated  by  blundering  artists),  are,  in  fact,  modulated 
by  the  brush  and  finger  to  that  degree  of  delicacy  that  no 
single  grain  of  the  color  could  be  taken  from  the  touch  without 
injury;  and  little  golden  particles  of  it,  not  the  size  of  a 
gnat's  head,  have  important  share  and  function  in  the  balances 
of  light  in  a  picture  perhaps  fifty  feet  long.  Nearly  every 
other  rule  applicable  to  art  has  some  exception  but  this.  This 
has  absolutely  none.  All  great  art  is  delicate  art,  and  all 
coarse  ait  is  bad  art.  Nay,  even  to  a  certain  extent,  all  bold 
art  is  bad  art ;  for  boldness  is  not  the  proper  word  to  apply 
to  the  courage  and  swiftness  of  a  great  master,  based  on 
knowledge,  and  coupled  with  fear  and  love.  Thare  is  as  much 
difference  between  the  boldness  of  the  true  and  the  false 
masters,  as  there  is  between  the  courage  of  a  pure  woman  and 
the  shamelessness  of  a  lost  one. 

rV.  INVENTION. — The  last  characteristic  of  great  art  is  that 
it  must  be  inventive,  that  is,  be  produced  by  the  imagination. 
In  this  respect  it  must  precisely  fulfil  the  definition  already 
given  of  poetry;  and  not  only  present  grounds  for  noble 
emotion,  but  furnish  these  grounds  by  imaginative  power. 
Hence  there  is  at  once  a  great  bar  fixed  between  the  two 
schools  of  Lower  and  Higher  Art.  The  lower  merely  copies 
what  is  set  before  it,  whether  in  portrait,  landscape,  or  still-life ; 
the  higher  either  entirely  imagines  its  subject,  or  arranges  the 
materials  presented  to  it,  so  as  to  manifest  the  imaginative 


CHARACTERISTICS    OF    "GREATNESS    OF   STYLE."  221 

power  in  all  the  three  phases  which  have  been  already  ex 
plained  in  the  second  volume. 

And  this  was  the  truth  which  was  confusedly  present  m 
Reynolds's  mind  when  he  spoke,  as  above  quoted,  of  the  differ 
once  between  Historical  and  Poetical  Painting.  Every  rela- 
tion of  the  plain  facts  which  the  painter  saw  is  proper  histo- 
rical painting.*  If  those  facts  are  unimportant  (as  that  he 
saw  a  gambler  quarrel  with  another  gambler,  or  a  sot  enjoying 
himself  with  another  sot),  then  the  history  is  trivial ;  if  the 
facts  are  important  (as  that  he  saw  such  and  such  a  great 
man  look  thus,  or  act  thus,  at  such  a  time),  then  the  history  is 
noble :  in  each  case  perfect  truth  of  narrative  being  supposed 
otherwise  the  whole  thing  is  worthless,  being  neither  history 
nor  poetry,  but  plain  falsehood.  And  farther,  as  greater  or 
less  elegance  and  precision  are  manifested  in  the  relation  or 
painting  of  the  incidents,  the  merit  of  the  work  varies ;  so 
that,  what  with  difference  of  subject,  and  what  with  differ- 
ence of  treatment,  historical  painting  falls  or  rises  in  changeful 
eminence,  from  Dutch  trivialities  to  a  Velasquez  portrait,  just 
as  historical  talking  or  writing  varies  in  eminence,  from  an  old 
woman's  story-telling  up  to  Herodotus.  Besides  which,  cer- 
tain operations  of  the  imagination  come  into  play  inevitably, 
here  and  there,  so  as  to  touch  the  history  with  some  light  of 
poetry,  that  is,  with  some  light  shot  forth  of  the  narrator's 
mind,  or  brought  out  by  the  way  he  has  put  the  accidents 
together ;  and  wherever  the  imagination  has  thus  had  any- 
thing to  do  with  the  matter  at  all  (and  it  must  be  somewhat 
cold  work  where  it  has  not),  then,  the  confines  of  the  lower 
and  higher  schools  touching  each  other,  the  work  is  colored 
by  both  ;  but  there  is  no  reason  Avhy,  therefore,  we  should  in 
the  least  confuse  the  historical  and  poetical  characters,  any 

*  Compare  my  Edinburgh  Lectures,  "ecture  iv.  p.  218,  et  seq  (2d  edition). 


222  PAINTING. 

iiioi-e  than  that  we  should  confuse  blue  with  crimson,  because 
thev  may  overlap  each  other,  and  produce  purple. 

Xow,  historical  or  simply  narrative  art  is  very  precious  ic 
its  proper  place  and  way,  but  it  is  never  great  art  until  the 
poetical  or  imaginative  power  touches  it ;  and  in  proportion 
to  the  stronger  manifestation  of  this  power,  it  becomes  greater 
and  greater,  while  the  highest  art  is  purely  imaginative,  all 
its  materials  being  wrought  into  their  form  by  invention ;  and 
it  differs,  therefore,  from  the  simple  historical  painting,  exactly 
as  Wordsworth's  stanza,  above  quoted,  differs  from  Saussure'8 
plain  narrative  of  the  parallel  fact;  and  the  imaginative 
painter  differs  from  the  historical  painter  in  the  manner  that 
Wordsworth  differs  from  Saussure. 

Farther,  imaginative  art  always  includes  historical  art; 
so  that,  strictly  speaking,  according  to  the  analogy  above 
used,  we  meet  with  the  pure  blue,  and  with  the  crimson  ruling 
the  blue  and  changing  it  into  kingly  purple,  but  not  with  the 
pure  crimson :  for  all  imagination  must  deal  with  the  know- 
ledge it  has  before  accumulated ;  it  never  produces  anything 
but  by  combination  or  contemplation.  Creation,  in  the  full 
sense,  is  impossible  to  it.  And  the  mode  in  which  the  histo- 
rical faculties  are  included  by  it  is  often  quite  simple,  and 
easily  seen.  Thus,  in  Hunt's  great  poetical  picture  of  the 
Light  of  the  World,  the  whole  thought  and  arrangement  of 
the  picture  being  imaginative,  the  sever. J  details  of  it  are 
wrought  out  with  simple  portraiture ;  the  ivy,  the  jewels,  the 
cieeping  plants,  and  the  moonlight  being  calmly  studied  or 
remembered  from  the  things  themselves.  But  of  all  these 
special  ways  in  which  the  invention  works  with  plain  facts,  we 
shall  have  to  treat  farther  afterwards. 

And  now,  finally,  since  this  poetical  power  includes  the 
historical,  if  we  glance  back  to  the  other  qualities  required  in 
great  art,  and  put  all  together,  we  find  that  the  sum  of  them 


CHARACTERISTICS    OF    "GREATNESS    OF    STYLE."  223 

is  simply  the  sum  of  all  the  powers  of  man.  For  as  (1)  the 
choice  of  the  high  subject  involves  all  conditions  of  right 
moral  choice,  and  as  (2)  the  love  of  beauty  involves  all  condi- 
tions of  right  admiration,  and  as  (3)  the  grasp  of  truth 
involves  all  strength  of  sense,  evenness  of  judgment,  and 
honesty  of  purpose,  and  as  (4)  the  poetical  power  involves  all 
swiftness  of  invention,  and  accuracy  of  historical  memory,  the 
s-am  of  all  these  powers  is  the  sum  of  the  human  soul.  Hence 
we  see  why  the  word  "  Great"  is  used  of  this  art.  It  is  lite- 
rally great.  It  compasses  and  calls  forth  the  entire  human 
spirit,  whereas  any  other  kind  of  art,  being  more  or  less  small 
or  narrow,  compasses  and  calls  forth  only  part  of  the  human 
spirit.  Hence  the  idea  of  its  magnitude  is  a  literal  and  just 
one,  the  art  being  simply  less  or  greater  in  proportion  to  the 
number  of  faculties  it  exercises  and  addresses.*  And  this  is 
the  ultimate  meaning  of  the  definition  I  gave  of  it  long  ago, 
as  containing  the  "greatest  number  of  the  greatest  ideas." 

Such,  then,  being  the  characters  required  in  order  to  con- 
stitute high  art,  if  the  reader  will  think  over  them  a  little,  and 
over  the  various  ways  in  which  they  may  be  falsely  assumed, 
he  will  easily  perceive  how  spacious  and  dangerous  a  field  of 
discussion  they  open  to  the  ambitious  critic,  and  of  error  to 
the  ambitious  artist ;  he  will  see  how  difficult  it  must  be, 
either  to  distinguish  what  is  truly  great  art  from  the  mocke- 
ries of  it,  or  to  rank  the  real  artists  in  anything  like  a  pro- 
gressive system  of  greater  and  less.  For  it  will  have  been 
observed  that  the  various  qualities  which  form  greatness  are 
partly  inconsistent  with  each  other  (as  some  virtues  are, 
docility  and  firmness  for  instance),  and  partly  independent  of 
eac-h  other ;  and  the  fact  is,  that  artists  differ  not  more  by 
mere  capacity,  than  by  the  component  elements  of  their  capa- 
city, each  possessing  in  very  different  proportions  the  several 

*  Compare  Stones  of  Venice,  vol.  iii.  chap.  iv.  §  7  and  §  21. 


'224  PAINTIXG. 

attributes  of  greatness;  so  that,  classed  by  one  kind  of  merit 
as,  for  instance,  purity  of  expression,  Angelico  will  stand 
highest;  classed  by  another,  sincezity  of  manner,  Veronese 
will  stand  highest ;  classed  by  another,  love  of  beauty,  Leo- 
nardo will  stand  highest  >  and  so  on;  hence  arise  continual 
disputes  and  misunderstandings  among  those  who  think  that 
high  art  must  always  be  one  and  the  same,  and  that  great 
artists  ought  to  unite  all  great  attributes  in  an  equal  degree. 

In  one  of  the  exquisitely  finished  tales  of  Marmontel,  a  com- 
pany of  critics  are  received  at  dinner  by  the  hero  of  the  story, 
an  old  gentleman,  somewhat  vain  of  his  acquired  taste,  and  his 
niece,  by  whose  incorrigible  natural  taste,  he  is  seriously  dis- 
turbed and  tormented.  During  the  entertainment,  "  On  par- 
courut  tous  les  genres  de  litterature,  et  pour  donner  plus  d'es- 
sor  a  1'eruditipn  et  a  la  critique,  on  mit  sur  le  tapis  cette  ques- 
tion toute  neuve,  S9avoir,  lequel  meritoit  le  preference  de 
Corneille  ou  de  Racine.  L'on  disoit  meme  la-dessus  les  plus 
belles  choses  du  monde,  lorsque  la  petite  niece,  qui  n'avoit  pas 
dit  un  mot,  s'avisa  de  demander  naivement  lequel  des  deux 
fruits,  de  1'orange  ou  de  la  peche,  avoit  le  gout  les  plus  exquis 
et  meritoit  le  plus  d'eloges.  Son  oncle  rougit  de  sa  simplicite, 
et  les  convives  baisserent  tous  les  yeux  sans  daigner  repondre 
&  cette  betise.  Ma  ni6ce,  dit  Fintac,  &  votre  age,  il  faut  sya- 
voir  ecouter,  et  se  taire." 

I  cannot  close  this  chapter  with  shorter  or  better  advice  to 
the  reader,  than  merely,  whenever  he  hears  discussions  about 
the  relative  merits  of  great  masters,  to  remember  the  young 
lady's  question.  It  is,  indeed,  true  that  there  is  a  relative 
merit,  that  a  peach  is  nobler  than  a  hawthorn  berry,  and  still 
more  a  hawthorn  berry  than  a  bead  of  the  nightshade  ;  but  in 
each  rank  of  fruits,  as  in  each  rank  of  masters,  one  is  endowed 
with  one  virtue,  and  another  with  another  ;  their  glory  is  their 
dissimilarity,  and  they  who  propose  to  themselves  in  the  train- 


CIIABA.CTERISTICS    OF    "GEEATXESS    OF    STYLE."  225 

jug  of  an  artist  that  lie  shornd  unite  the  coloring  of  Tintoret, 
the  finish  of  Albert  Durer,  and  the  tenderness  of  Correggio, 
are  no  wiser  than  a  horticulturist  would  be,  who  made  it  the 
object  of  his  labor  to  produce  a  fruit  which  should  unite  in 
itself  the  lusciousncss  of  the  grape,  the  crispness  of  the  nut,  and 
the  fragrance  of  the  pine. 

And  from  these  considerations  one  most  important  practical 
corollary  is  to  be  deduced,  with  the  good  help  of  Mademoiselle 
Agathe's  simile,  namely,  that  the  greatness  or  smallness  of  a 
man  is,  in  the  most  conclusive  sense,  detennined  for  him  at  hia 
birth,  as  strictly  as  it  is  determined  for  a  fruit  whether  it  is  to 
be  a  currant  or  an  apricot.  Education,  favorable  circum- 
stances, resolution,  and  industry  can  do  much ;  in  a  certain 
sense  they  do  everything ;  that  is  to  say,  they  determine 
whether  the  poor  apricot  shall  fall  in  the  form  of  a  green  bead, 
blighted  by  an  east  wind,  shall  be  trodden  under  foot,  or 
whether  it  shall  expand  into  tender  pride,  and  sweet  bright- 
ness of  golden  velvet.  But  apricot  out  of  currant, — great  man 
out  of  small, — did  never  yet  art  or  effort  make ;  and,  in  a 
general  way,  men  have  their  excellence  nearly  fixed  for  them 
when  they  are  born  ;  a  little  cramped  and  frost-bitten  on  one 
side,  a  little  sun-burnt  and  fortune-spotted  on  the  other,  they 
reach,  between  good  and  evil  chances,  such  size  and  taste  as 
generally  belong  to  the  men  of  their  calibre,  and  the  small  in 
their  serviceable  bunches,  the  great  in  their  golden  isolation, 
have,  these  no  cause  for  regret,  nor  those  for  disdain. 

Therefore  it  is,  that  every  system  of  teaching  is  false  which 
bolds  forth  "  great  art  "  as  in  any  wise  to  be  taught  to  students, 
or  even  to  be  aimed  at  by  them.  Great  art  is  precisely  thnt 
which  never  was,  nor  will  be  taught,  it  is  pre-eminently 
ai.'d  finully  the  expression  of  the  spirits  of  great  men ;  so  that 
the  only  wholesome  teaching  is  that  which  simply  endeavors 
to  fix  those  characters  of  nobleness  in  the  pupil's  mind  of  which 

10* 


226  PAINTING. 

it  seems  easily  susceptible ;  and  without  holding  out  to  him,  as 
a  possible  or  even  probable  result,  that  he  should  ever  paint 
like  Titian,  or  carve  like  Michael  Angelo,  enforces  upon  him 
the  manifest  possibility,  and  assured  duty,  of  endeavoring  to 
draw  in  a  manner  at  least  honest  and  intelligible ;  and  cu'ti 
vates  in  him  those  general  charities  of  heart,  sincerities  of 
thought,  and*  graces  of  habit  which  are  likely  to  lead  him, 
throughout  life,  to  prefer  openness  to  affectation,  realities  to 
shadows,  and  beauty  to  corruption. 

THE   FALSE  IDEAL. 

The  pursuit,  by  the  imagination,  of  beautiful  and  strange 
thoughts  or  subjects,  to  the  exclusion  of  painful  or  common 
ones,  is  called  among  us,  in  these  modern  days,  the  pursuit  of 
"the  ideal;"  nor  does  any  subject  deserve  more  attentive 
examination  than  the  manner  in  which  this  pursuit  is  entered 
upon  by  the  modern  mind.  The  reader  must  pardon  me  for 
making  in  the  outset  one  or  two  statements  which  may  appear 
to  him  somewhat  wide  of  the  matter,  but  which,  (if  he  admits 
their  truth,)  he  will,  I  think,  presently  perceive  to  reach  to  the 
root  of  it.  Namely, 

That  men's  proper  business  in  this  world  falls  mainly  into 
three  divisions : 

First,  to  know  themselves,  and  the  existing  state  of  the 
things  they  have  to  do  with. 

Secondly,  to  be  happy  in  themselves,  and  in  the  existing  slate 
of  things. 

Thirdly,  to  mend  themselves,  and  the  existing  state  of  things, 
as  far  as  either  are  marred  or  mendable. 

These,  I  say,  are  the  three  plain  divisions  of  proper  human 
business  on  this  earth.  For  these  three,  the  following  arc 
usually  substituted  and  adopted  by  human  creatures : 


227 

First,  to  be  totally  ignorant  of  themselves,  and  the  easting 
state  of  things. 

Secondly,  to  be  miserable  in  themselves,  and  in  the  existing 
state  of  things. 

Thirdly,  to  let  themselves,  and  the  existing  state  of  things, 
alone  (at  least  in  the  way  of  correction). 

The  dispositions  which  induce  us  to  manage,  thus  wisely, 
the  affairs  of  this  life  seem  to  be : 

First,  a  fear  of  disagreeable  facts,  and  conscious  shrinking 
from  clearness  of  light,  which  keep  us  from  examining  ourselves, 
and  increase  gradually  into  a  species  of  instinctive  terror  at  all 
truth,  and  love  of  glosses,  veils,  and  decorative  lies  of  every  sort, 

Secondly,  a  general  readiness  to  take  delight  in  anything 
past,  future,  far  off,  or  somewhere  else,  rather  than  in  things 
now,  near,  and  here  ;  leading  us  gradually  to  place  our  pleasure 
principally  in  the  exercise  of  the  imagination,  and  to  build  all 
our  satisfaction  on  things  as  they  are  not.  Which  power  being 
one  not  accorded  to  the  lower  animals,  and  having  indeed, 
when  disciplined,  a  very  noble  use,  we  pride  ourselves  upon  it 
whether  disciplined  or  not,  and  pass  our  lives  complacently,  in 
substantial  discontent,  and  visionary  satisfaction. 

Now  nearly  all  artistical  and  poetical  seeking  after  the  ideal 
is  only  one  branch  of  this  base  habit — the  abuse  of  the  imagina- 
tion, in  allowing  it  to  find  its  whole  delight  in  the  impossible 
and  untrue ;  while  the  faithful  pursuit  of  the  ideal  is  an  honest 
use  of  the  imagination,  giving  full  power  and  presence  to  the 
possible  and  true. 

It  is  the  difference  between  these  two  uses  of  it  which  we 
have  to  examine. 

And,  first,  consider  what  are  the  legitimate  uses  of  the 
imagination,  that  is  to  say,  of  the  power  of  perceiving,  or 
conceiving  with  the  mind  things  which  cannot  be  perceived  by 
the  senses. 


228 

Its  Gist  and  noblest  use  is,  to  enable  us  to  bring  sensibly 
to  our  sight  the  things  which  are  recorded  as  belonging  to  our 
future  state,  or  as  invisibly  surrounding  us  in  this.  It  is  given 
us,  that  we  may  imagine  the  cloud  of  witnesses  in  heaven 
and  earth,  and  see,  as  if  they  were  now  present,  the  souls  of 
the  righteous  waiting  for  us ;  that  we  may  conceive  the  great 
army  of  the  inhabitants  of  heaven,  and  discover  among  them 
those  whom  AVC  most  desire  to  be  with  for  ever ;  that  we  may 
be  able  to  vision  forth  the  ministry  of  angels  beside  us,  and  see 
the  chariots  of  fire  on  the  mountains  that  gird  us  round ;  but 
above  all,  to  call  up  the  scenes  and  facts  in  which  we  are 
commanded  to  believe,  and  be  present,  as  if  in  the  body,  at 
every  recorded  event  of  the  history  of  the  Redeemer.  Its 
second  and  ordinary  use  is  to  empower  us  to  traverse  the  sccnea 
of  all  other  history,  and  force  the  facts  to  become  again  visible, 
so  as  to  make  upon  us  the  same  impression  which  they  would 
have  made  if  we  had  witnessed  them;  and  in  the  minor 
necessities  of  life,  to  enable  us,  out  of  any  present  good, 
to  gather  the  utmost  measure  of  enjoyment  by  investing 
it  with  happy  associations,  and,  hi  any  present  evil,  to 
lighten  it,  by  summoning  back  the  images  of  other  hours; 
and,  also,  to  give  to  all  mental  truths  some  visible  type  in 
allegory,  simile,  or  personification,  \vhich  shall  more  deeply 
enforce  them ;  and,  finally,  when  the  mind  is  utterly  out- 
wearied,  to  refresh  it  with  such  innocent  play  as  shall  be 
most  in  harmony  with  the  suggestive  voices  of  natural 
things,  permitting  it  to  possess  living  companionship  instead 
of  silent  beauty,  and  create  for  itself  fairies  in  the  grass  and 
naiads  in  the  wave. 

These  being  the  uses  of  imagination,  its  abuses  are  either 
in  creating,  for  mere  pleasure,  false  images,  where  it  is  its 
duty  to  create  true  ones;  or  in  turning  what  was  intended 
for  the  mere  refreshment  of  the  heart  into  its  daily  food,  and 


THE   FALSE   IDEAL.  229 

changing  the  innocent  pastimes  of  an  hour  iiilo  the  guilty 
occupation  of  a  life. 

It  became  necessary,  to  the  full  display  of  all  the  power  of 
the  artist,  that  the  subject  should  in  many  respects  be  more 
faithfully  imagined  that  it  had  been  hitherto.  "Keeping," 
"Expression,"  "Historical  Unity,"  and  such  other  require- 
ments, were  enforced  on  the  painter,  in  the  same  tone,  and 
with  the  same  purpose,  as  the  purity  of  his  oil  and  the  ac- 
curacy of  his  perspective.  He  was  told  that  the  figure  of 
Christ  should  be  "  dignified,"  those  of  the  Apostles  "  expres- 
sive," that  of  the  Virgin  "  modest,"  and  those  of  children 
"  innocent."  All  this  was  perfectly  true  ;  and  in  obedience  to 
such  directions,  the  painter  proceeded  to  manufacture  certain 
arrangements  of  apostolic  sublimity,  virginal  mildness,  and 
infantine  innocence,  which,  being  free  from  the  quaint  imper- 
fection and  contradictoriness  of  the  early  art,  were  looked 
upon  by  the  European  public  as  true  things,  and  trustworthy 
representations  of  the  events  of  religious  history.  The  pic- 
tures of  Francia  and  Bellini  had  been  received  as  pleasant 
visions.  But  the  cartoons  of  Raphael  were  received  as  repre- 
sentations of  historical  fact. 

Now,  neither  they,  nor  any  other  work  of  the  period,  were 
representations  either  of  historical  or  possible  fact.  They 
were,  in  the  strictest  sense  of  the  word,  "  compositions" — cold 
arrangements  of  propriety  and  agreeableness,  according  to 
academical  formulas  ;  the  painter  never  in  any  case  making 
the  slightest  effort  to  conceive  the  thing  as  it  must  have  hap- 
pened, but  only  to  gather  together  graceful  lines  and  beautiful 
taces,  in  such  compliance  with  commonplace  ideas  of  the  sub- 
ject as  might  obtain  for  the  whole  an  "  epic  unity,"  or  some 
such  other  form  of  scholastic  perfectness. 

Take  a  reiy  important  instance. 


230  PAINTING. 

I  suppose  there  is  no  event  in  the  whole  life  of  Cl  rist  to 
which,  in  hours  of  doubt  or  fear,  men  turn  with  more  anxious 
thirst  to  know  the  close  facts  of  it,  or  with  more  earnest  and 
passionate  dwelling  upon  every  syllable  of  its  recorded  narra- 
tive, than  Christ's  showing  Himself  to  bis  disciples  at  the  lake 
of  Galilee.  There  is  something  preeminently  open,  natural, 
full  fronting  our  disbelief  in  this  manifestation.  The  others, 
recorded  after  the  resurrection,  were  sudden,  phantom-like, 
occurring  to  men  in  profound  sorrow  and  wearied  agitation  of 
heart ;  not,  it  might  seem,  safe  judges  of  what  they  saw.  But 
the  agitation  was  now  over.  They  had  gone  back  to  their 
daily  work,  thinking  still  their  business  lay  net-wards,  un- 
meshcd  from  the  literal  rope  and  drag.  "  Simon  Peter  saith 
unto  them, '  I  go  a  fishing.'  They  say  unto  him,  '  We  also  go 
with  thee.'  "  True  words  enough,  and  having  far  echo  beyond 
those  Galilean  hills.  That  night  they  caught  nothing;  but 
when  the  morning  came,  in  the  clear  light  of  it,  behold  a 
figure  stood  on  the  shore.  They  Avere  not  thinking  of  any 
thing  but  their  fruitless  hauls.  They  had  no  guess  Avho  it  was, 
It  asked  them  simply  if  they  had  caught  anything.  They  said 
no.  And  it  tells  them  to  cast  yet  again.  And  John  shades 
his  eyes  from  the  morning  sun  with  his  hand,  to  look  Avho  it 
is ;  and  though  the  glinting  of  the  sea,  too,  dazzles  him,  he 
makes  out  who  it  is,  at  last;  and  poor  Simon,  not  to  be 
outrun  this  time,  tightens  his  fisher's  coat  about  him.  and 
dashes  in,  over  the  nets.  One  would  have  liked  to  see  him 
swim  those  hundred  yards,  and  stagger  to  his  knees  on  the 
beach. 

Well,  the  others  get  to  the  beach,  too,  in  time,  in  such  slow 
way  as  men  in  general  do  get,  in  this  world,  to  its  true  shore, 
much  impeded  by  that  wonderful  "dragging  the  net  with 
fishes;"  but  they  get  there — seven  of  them  in  all; — first  the 
Denier,  and  then  the  slowest  believer,  and  then  the  quickest 


THE   FALSE    IDEAL.  231 

believer,  and  then  the  two  throne-seekers,  and  two  more,  we 
know  not  who. 

They  sit-down  on  the  shore  face  to  face  with  Him,  and  eat 
iheir  broiled  fish  as  He  bids.  And  then,  to  Peter,  all  dripping 
still,  shivering,  and  amazed,  staring  at  Christ  in  the  sun  on  the 
other  side  of  the  coal  fire, — thinking  a  little,  perhaps,  of  what 
happened  by  another  coal  fire,  when  it  was  colder,  and  having 
had  no  word  once  changed  with  him  by  his  Master  since  that 
look  of  His, — to  him,  so  amazed,  comes  the  question,  "  Simon, 
lovest  thou  me  ?"  Try  to  feel  that  a  little,  and  think  of  it  till 
it  is  true  to  you ;  and  then,  take  up  that  infinite  monstrosity 
and  hypocrisy — Raphael's  cartoon  of  the  Charge  to  Peter. 
Note,  first,  the  bold  fallacy — the  putting  all  the  Apostles 
there,  a  mere  lie  to  serve  the  Papal  heresy  of  the  Petric  su- 
premacy, by  putting  them  all  in  the  background  while  Peter 
receives  the  charge,  and  making  them  till  witnesses  to  it.  Note 
the  handsomely  curled  hair  and  neatly  tied  sandals  of  the  men 
who  had  been  out  all  night  in  the  sea-mists  and  on  the  slimy 
decks.  Note  their  convenient  dresses  for  going  a-fishing,  with 
trains  that  lie  a  yard  along  the  ground,  and  goodly  fringes, — 
all  made  to  match,  an  apostolic  fishing  costume.*  Note  how 
Peter  especially  (whose  chief  glory  Avas  in  his  wet  coat  girt 
about  him  and  naked  limbs)  is  enveloped  in  folds  and  fringes, 
so  as  to  kneel  and  hold  his  keys  with  grace.  No  fire  of  coala 
at  all,  nor  lonely  mountain  shore,  but  a  pleasant  Italian  land- 
scape, full  Oi'  villas  and  churches,  and  a  flock  of  sheep  to  be 
pointed  at ;  and  the  whole  group  of  Apostles,  not  round  Christ, 
as  they  would  have  been  naturally,  but  straggling  away  in  a 
line,  that  they  may  all  be  shown. 

The  simple  truth  is,  that  the  moment  we  look  at  the  picture 

*  I  suppose  Raphael  intended  a  reference  to  Numbers  xv.  38. ;  but  if  be 
did  the  blue  riband,  or  "vitta,"  as  it  is  in  the  Yulgate,  should  have  been  ol 
the  borders  too. 


232  PAINTING. 

we  feel  our  belief  of  the  whole  thing  taken  away.  There  is, 
visibly,  no  possibility  of  that  group  ever  having  existed,  it 
any  place,  or  on  any  occasion.  It  is  all  a  mere  mythic  absur- 
dity, and  faded  concoction  of  fringes,  muscular  arms,  and 
curly  heads  of  Greek  philosophers. 

Now,  the  evil  consequences  of  the  acceptance  of  this  kinJ 
of  religious  idealism  for  true,  were  instant  and  manifold.  So 
far  as  it  was  received  and  trusted  in  by  thoughtful  persons, 
it  only  served  to  chill  all  the  conceptions  of  sacred  history 
which  they  might  otherwise  have  obtained.  Whatever  they 
could  have  fancied  for  themselves  about  the  wild,  strange, 
infinitely  stern,  infinitely  tender,  infinitely  varied  veracities  of 
the  life  of  Christ,  was  blotted  out  by  the  vapid  fineries  of 
Raphael ;  the  rough  Galilean  pilot,  the  orderly  custom 
receiver,  and  all  the  questioning  wonder  and  fire  of  unedu- 
cated apostleship,  were  obscured  under  an  antique  masque  of 
philosophical  faces  and  long  robes.  The  feeble,  subtle,  suffer- 
ing, ceaseless  energy  and  humiliation  of  St.  Paul  were  con- 
fused with  an  idea  of  a  meditative  Hercules  leaning  on  a 
sweeping  sword  ;*  and  the  mighty  presences  of  Moses  and 
Elias  were  softened  by  introductions  of  delicate  grace  adopted 
from  dancing  nymphs  and  rising  Auroras.f 

Now,  no  vigorously  minded  religious  person  could  possibly 
receive  pleasure  or  help  from  such  art  as  this ;  and  the  neces- 

*  In  the  St  Cecilia  of  Bologna. 

f  In  the  Transfiguration.  Do  but  try  to  believe  tliat  JJfoses  and  Elias  are 
really  there  talking  with  Christ.  Moses  in  the  loveliest  heart  and  midst  of 
the  land  which  otice  it  had  been  denied  him  to  behold, — Elijah  treading  the 
o.Vith  again,  from  which  he  had  been  swept  to  heaven  in  fire ;  both  now 
uith  a  mightier  message  than  ever  they  had  given  in  life, — mightier 
in  closing  their  own  mission, — mightier,  in  speaking  to  Christ  "  of  Hia 
decease,  which  He  should  accomplish  at  Jerusalem."  They,  men  of  like  pae- 
Binns  once  with  us,  appointed  to  speak  to  the  Redeemer  of  His  death. 

And,  then,  look  at  Raphael's  kicking  gracefulnesses. 


TILE   FALSE   IDEAL.  233 

sary  result  was  the  instant  rejection  of  it  by  the  healthy  reli- 
gion of  the  world.  Raphael  ministered,  with  applause,  to  the 
impious--  luxury  of  the  Vatican,  but  was  trampled  under  foot 
at  once  by  every  believing  and  advancing  Christian  of  his  own 
and  subsequent  times ;  and  thenceforward  pure  Christianity 
and  "  high  art"  took  separate  roads,  and  fared  on,  as  best  they 
might,  independently  of  each  other. 

But  although  Calvin,  and  Knox,  and  Luther,  and  their 
flocks,  with  all  the  hardest-headed  and  truest-hearted  faithful 
left  hi  Christendom,  thus  spurned  away  the  spurious  art,  and 
all  art  with  it  (not  without  harm  to  themselves,  such  as  a  man 
must  needs  sustain  in  cutting  off  a  decayed  limb*),  certain 
conditions  of  weaker  Christianity  suffered  the  false  system  to 
retain  influence  over  them ;  and  to  this  day,  the  clear  and 
tasteless  poison  of  the  art  of  Raphael  infects  with  sleep  of 
infidelity  the  hearts  of  millions  of  Christians.  It  is  the  first 
cause  of  all  that  preeminent  dulness  which  characterizes 
what  Protestants  call  sacred  art  ;  a  dulness,  not  merely  bane- 
ful in  making  religion  distasteful  to  the  young,  but  in  sicken- 
ing, as  we  have  seen,  all  vital  belief  of  religion  in  the  old, 
A  dun  sense  of  impossibility  attaches  itself  always  to  the 
graceful  emptiness  of  the  representation  ;  we  feel  instinc- 
tively that  the  painted  Christ  and  painted  apostle  are  not 
beings  that  ever  did  or  could  exist ;  and  this  fatal  sense  of  fair 
fabulousness,  and  well-composed  impossibility,  steals  gradually 
from  the  picture  into  the  history,  until  we  find  ourselves  read- 
ing  St.  Mark  or  St.  Luke  with  the  same  admiring,  but  unin- 
terested, incredulity,  with  which  we  contemplate  Raphael. 

On  a  certain  class  of  minds,  however,  these  Raphaelesque 
and  other  sacred  paintings  of  high  order,  have  had,  of  late 

*  Luther  hr.d  no  dislike  of  religious  art  OH  principle.  Even  the  stove  in 
his  chamber  was  wrought  with  sacred  subjects.  See  Mrs.  Stowo's  Sunny 
Memories. 


234  PAINTING. 

years,  another  kind  of  influence,  much  resembling  that  which 
they  had  at  first  on  the  most  pious  Romanists.  They  are  used 
to  excite  certain  conditions  of  religious  dream  or  reverie ;  being 
again,  as  in  earliest  times,  regarded  not  as  representations  of 
fact,  but  as  expressions  of  sentiment  respecting  the  fact.  In 
this  way  the  best  of  them  have  unquestionably  much  purifying 
ai.d  enchanting  power;  and  they  are  helpful  opponents  to  sin- 
ful passion  and  weakness  of  every  kind.  A  fit  of  unjust  anger, 
petty  malice,  unreasonable  vexation,  or  dark  passion,  cannot 
certainly,  in  a  mind  of  ordinary  sensibility,  hold  its  own  in  the 
presence  of  a  good  engraving  from  any  work  of  Angelico, 
Memling,  or  Perugino.  But  I  nevertheless  believe,  that  he 
who  trusts  much  to  such  helps  will  find  them  fail  him  at  his 
need ;  and  that  the  dependence,  in  any  great  degree,  on  the 
presence  or  power  of  a  picture,  indicates  a  wonderfully  feeble 
sense  of  the  presence  and  power  of  God.  I  do  not  think 
that  any  man,  who  is  thoroughly  certain  that  Christ  is  in  the 
room,  will  care  what  sort  of  pictures  of  Christ  he  has  on  its 
walls  ;  and,  in  the  plurality  of  cases,  the  delight  taken  in  art 
of  this  kind  is,  in  reality,  nothing  more  than  a  form  of  grace- 
ful indulgence  of  those  sensibilities  which  the  habits  of  a  dis- 
ciplined life  restrain  in  other  directions.  Such  art  is,  in  a  word, 
the  opera  and  drama  of  the  monk.  Sometimes  it  is  worse  than 
this,  and  the  love  of  it  is  the  mask  under  which  a  general 
thirst  for  morbid  excitement  will  pass  itself  for  religion.  The 
young  lady  who  rises  in  the  middle  of  the  day,  jaded  by  her 
last  night's  ball,  and  utterly  incapable  of  any  simple  or  whole- 
gome  religious  exercise,  can  still  gaze  info  the  dark  eyes  of  the 
Madonna  di  San  Sisto,  or  dream  over  the  whiteness  of  an  ivory 
crucifix,  and  returns  to  the  course  of  her  daily  life  in  full  per- 
•nias'on  that  her  morning's  feverishness  has  atoned  for  her 
evening's  folly.  And  all  the  while,  the  art  which  possesses 
these  very  doubtful  advantages  is  acting  for  undoubtful  detri- 


THE   FALSE    IDEAL.  235 

mei  t,  in  the  various  ways  above  examined,  on  the  inmost  last- 
nesses  of  faith  ;  it  is  throwing  subtle  endearments  round  fooi- 
ish  traditions,  confusing  sweet  fancies  with  sound  doctrines,, 
obscuring  real  events  with  unlikely  semblances,  and  enforcing 
false  assertions  with  pleasant  circumstantiality,  until,  to  the 
usual,  and  assuredly  sufficient,  difficulties  standing  in  the  way 
of  belief,  its  votaries  have  added  a  habit  of  sentimentally 
changing  what  they  know  to  be  true,  and  of  dearly  loving 
what  they  confess  to  be  false. 

Has  therj,  then  (the  reader  asks  emphatically),  been  no 
true  religious  ideal  ?  Has  religious  art  never  been  of  any  ser- 
vice to  mankind  ?  I  fear,  on  the  whole,  not.  Of  true  religious 
ideal,  representing  events  historically  recorded,  with  solemn 
eft'ort  at  a  sincere  and  unartificial  conception,  there  exist,  aa 
yet,  hardly  any  examples.  Nearly  all  good  religious  pictures 
fall  into  one  or  other  branch  of  the  false  ideal  already 
examined,  either  into  the  Angelican  (passionate  ideal)  or  the 
Raphaelesque  (philosophical  ideal).  But  there  is  one  true 
form  of  religious  art,  nevertheless,  in  the  pictures  of  the  pas- 
sionate ideal  which  represent  imaginary  beings  of  another 
world.  Since  it  is  evidently  right  that  we  should  try  to 
imagine  the  glories  of  the  next  world,  and  as  this  imagination 
must  be,  in  each  separate  mind,  more  or  less  different,  and 
unconfined  by  any  laws  of  material  fact,  the  passionate  ideal 
has  not  only  full  scope  here,  but  it  becomes  our  duty  to  urge 
its  powers  to  its  utmost,  so  that  every  condition  of  beautiful 
form  and  color  may  be  employed  to  invest  these  scenes  with 
greater  delightfulness  (the  whole  being,  of  course,  received  as 
an  assertion  of  possibility,  not  of  absolute  fact).  All  the  para- 
dises imagined  by  the  religious  painters — the  choirs  of  glori- 
fied saints,  angels,  and  spiritual  powers,  when  painted  with 
full  belief  in  this  possibility  of  their  existence,  are  true  ideals , 
and  so  far  from  our  having  dwelt  on  these  too  much,  I  believe. 


236  PA.INTIXO 

rather,  we  have  not  trusted  them  enough,  nor  accepted  them 
enough,  as  possible  statements  of  most  precious  truth.  No- 
thing but  unmixed  good  can  accrue  to  any  mind  from  the 
contemplation  of  Orcagna's  Last  Judgment  or  his  triumph  of 
death,  of  Angelico's  Last  Judgment  and  Paradise,  or  any  of 
the  scenes  laid  in  heaven  by  the  other  faithful  religious  masters ; 
and  the  more  they  are  considered,  not  as  works  of  art,  but  as 
real  visions  of  real  things,  more  or  less  imperfectly  set  down, 
the  more  good  will  be  got  by  dwelling  upon  them.  The  same 
is  true  of  all  representations  of  Christ  as  a  living  presence 
among  us  now,  as  in  Hunt's  Light  of  the  World. 

The  examination  of  the  various  degrees  in  which  sacred  art 
has  reached  its  proper  power  is  not  to  our  present  purpose ; 
still  less,  to  investigate  the  infinitely  difficult  question  of  its 
past  operation  on  the  Christian  mind ;  it  being  enough  hero 
to  mark  the  forms  of  ideal  error,  Avithout  historically  tracing 
their  extent,  and  to  state  generally  that  my  impression  is,  up 
to  the  present  moment,  that  the  best  religious  art  has  been 
hitherto  rather  a  fruit,  and  attendant  sign,  of  sincere  Chris- 
tianity than  a  promoter  of  or  help  to  it.  More,  I  think,  has 
always  been  done  for  God  by  few  words  than  many  pictures, 
and  more  by  few  acts  than  many  words. 

I  must  not,  however,  quit  the  subject  without  insisting  on 
the  chief  practical  consequence  of  what  we  have  observed, 
namely,  that  sacred  art,  so  far  from  being  exhausted,  has  yet 
to  attain  the  development  of  its  highest  branches ;  and  the 
task,  or  privilege,  yet  remains  for  mankind,  to  produce  an  art 
which  shall  be  at  once  entirely  skilful  and  entirely  sincere. 
All  the  histories  of  the  Bible  are,  in  my  judgment,  yet  waiting 
to  be  painted.  Moses  has  never  been  painted ;  Elijah  never ; 
David  never  (except  as  a  mere  ruddy  stripling) ;  Deborah 
never;  Gideon  never;  Isaiah  never.  What  single  example 
does  the  reader  remember  of  painting  which  suggested  so 


THE   FALSE   IDEAL.  237 

much  as  the  faintest  shadow  of  these  people,  or  of  their  deed?,/ 
Strong  men  in  armor,  or  aged  men  with  flowing  beards,  he 
may  remember,  who,  when  he  looked  at  his  Lcuvre  or  Uffizii 
catalogue,  he  found  were  intended  to  stand  for  David  or  for 
Moses.  But  does  he  suppose  that,  if  these  pictures  had  sug- 
gested to  him  the  feeblest  image  of  the  presence  of  such  men, 
ho  would  1m  e  passed  on,  as  he  assuredly  did,  to  the  next 
picture, — representing,  doubtless,  Diana  and  Action,  or  Cupid 
und  the  Graces,  or  a  gambling  quarrel  in  a  pothouse, — with 
no  sense  of  pain,  or  surprise  ?  Let  him  meditate  over  the 
matter,  and  he  will  find  ultimately  that  what  I  say  is  true,  and 
that  religious  art,  at  once  complete  and  sincere,  never  yet  has 
existed. 

It  will  exist :  nay,  I  believe  the  era  of  its  birth  has  come, 
and  that  those  bright  Turnerian  imageries,  which  the  Euro- 
pean public  declared  to  be  "  dotage,"  and  those  calm  Pre- 
Raphaelite  studies  which,  in  like  manner,  it.  pronounced 
"puerility,"  form  the  first  foundation  that  has  been  ever  laid 
for  true  sacred  art.  Of  this  we  shall  presently  reason  farther. 
But,  be  it  as  it  may,  if  we  would  cherish  the  hope  that  sacred 
art  may,  indeed,  arise  for  «s,  two  separate  cautions  are  to  be 
addressed  to  the  two  opposed  classes  of  religionists  whose 
influence  will  chiefly  retard  that  hope's  accomplishment.  The 
group  calling  themselves  Evangelical  oxight  no  longer  to 
lender  their  religion  an  offence  to  men  of  the  world  by  asso- 
ciating it  only  with  the  most  vulgar  forms  of  art.  It  is  not 
necessary  that  they  should  admit  either  music  or  painting 
into  religious  service ;  but,  if  they  admit  either  the  one 
or  the  other,  let  it  not  be  bad  music  nor  bad  pausing:  it  is 
certainly  in  nowise  more  for  Christ's  honor  that  His  praise 
should  be  sung  discordantly,  or  His  miracles  painted  discre- 
ditably, than  that  His  word  should  be  preached  ungramma- 


238  PAINTING. 

tically.     Some  Evangelicals,  however,  seem  to  take  a  morbid 
pride  in  the  triple  degradation.* 

The  opposite  class  of  men,  whose  natural  instincts  lead 
them  to  mingle  the  refinements  of  art  with  all  the  offices  and 
practices  of  religion,  are  to  be  warned,  on  the  contrary,  how 
they  mistake  their  enjoyments  for  their  duties,  or  confoun<? 
poetry  with  faith.  I  admit  that  it  is  impossible  for  one  man 
to  judge  another  in  this  matter,  and  that  it  can  never  be  said 
with  certaint}  how  far  what  seems  frivolity  may  be  force,  and 
what  seems  the  indulgence  of  the  heart  may  be,  indeed,  its 
dedication.  I  am  ready  to  believe  that  Metastasio,  expiring 
in  a  canzonet,  may  have  died  better  than  if  his  prayer  had 
been  in  unmeasured  syllables.f  But,  for  the  most  part,  it  is 

*  I  do  not  know  anything  more  humiliating  to  a  man  of  common  sense, 
than  to  open  what  is  called  an  "  Illustrated  Bible"  of  modern  days.  See,  for 
instance,  the  plates  in  Brown's  Bible  (octavo:  Edinburgh,  1840)  a  standard 
evangelical  edition.  Our  habit  of  reducing  the  Psalms  to  doggrel  before  we 
will  condescend  to  sing  them,  is  a  parallel  abuse.  It  is  marvellous  to  think 
that  human  creatures  with  tongues  and  souls  should  refuse  to  chant  the 
verse :  "  Before  Ephraim,  Benjamin,  and  Manasseh,  stir  up  thy  strength,  and 
come  and  help  us;"  preferring  this: — 

"  Behold,  how  Benjamin  expects, 

With  Ephraim  and  Mauasseh  joined, 
In  their  deliverance,  the  effects 

Of  thy  resistless  strength  to  findl" 

•f  "En  1780,  age"  de  quatre-vingt-deux   ans,  au  moment  de  recevoir  le 
vi&tique.  il  rassembla  ses  forces,  et  chanta  a  son  Creatcur 
'  Eterno  Genitor 
lo  t'  offro  il  proprio  figlio 
Che  in  pegno  del  tuo  amor 
Si  vuole  a  me  douar. 
A  lui  rivolgi  il  ciglio, 
Mira  chi  t'  of-o;  e  poi, 
Niega,  Signor,  se  puoi, 
Niega  di  perdonar.' n 
— DE  STENDHAL,  Via  de  Melastasio. 


THE  FALSE    IDEAL.  239 

assuredly  much  to  be  feared  lest  we  mistake  a  surrender  tc 
the  charms  of  art  for  one  to  the  service  of  God ;  and,  in  the 
art  which  M  e  permit,  lest  we  substitute  sentiment  for  sense, 
grace  for  utility.  And  for  us  all  there  is  in  this  matter  even 
a  deeper  danger  than  that  of  indulgence.  There  is  the 
danger  of  Artistical  Pharisaism.  Of  all  the  forms  of  pride 
and  vanity,  as  there  are  none  more  subtle,  so  I  believe  there 
are  none  more  sinful,  than  those  which  are  manifested  by  the 
Pharisees  of  art.  To  be  proud  of  birth,  of  place,  of  wit,  of 
bodily  beauty,  is  comparatively  innocent,  just  because  such 
pride  is  more  natural,  and  more  easily  detected.  But  to  be 
proud  of  our  sanctities ;  to  pour  contempt  upon  our  fellows, 
because,  forsooth,  we  like  to  look  at  Madonnas  in  bowers  of 
roses,  better  than  at  plain  pictures  of  plain  things ;  and  to 
make  this  religious  art  of  ours  the  expression  of  our  o\vn  per- 
petual self-complacency, — congratulating  ourselves,  day  by 
day,  on  our  purities,  proprieties,  elevations,  and  inspirations, 
as  above  the  reach  of  common  mortals, — this  I  believe  to  be 
one  of  the  wickedest  and  foolishest  forms  of  human  egotism  ; 
and,  truly,  I  had  rather,  with  great,  thoughtless,  humble  Paul 
Veronese,  make  the  Supper  at  Emmaus  a  background  for  two 
children  playing  with  a  dog  (as,  God  knows,  men  do  usually 
put  it  in  the  background  to  everything,  if  not  out  of  sight 
altogether),  than  join  that  school  of  modern  Germanism  which 
wears  its  pieties  for  decoration  as  women  wear  their  dia- 
monds, and  flaunts  the  dry  fleeces  of  its  phylacteries  between 
its  dust  and  the  dew  of  heaven. 

When  we  pass  to  the  examination  of  what  is  beautiful  and 
expressive  in  art,  we  shall  frequently  find  distinctive  qualities 
in  the  minds  even  of  inferior  artists,  which  have  led  them  to  the 
pursuit  and  embodying  of  particular  trains  of  thought,  alto- 
gether different  from  those  which  direct  the  compositions  of  other 


240  PAINTING. 

DICU,  and  incapable  of  comparison  with  them.  Now,  when 
this  is  the  case,  we  should  consider  it  in  the  highest  degree 
both  invidious  and  illogical,  to  say  of  such  different  modes  of 
exertion  of  the  intellect,  that  one  is  in  all  points  greater  or 
nobler  than  another.  We  shall  probably  find  something  in 
tlif.  working  of  all  minds  which  has  an  end  and  a  power  pecu 
liar  to  itself,  and  which  is  deserving  of  free  and  full  admiration, 
without  any  reference  whatsoever  to  what  has,  in  other  fields, 
been  accomplished  by  other  modes  of  thought,  and  directions 
of  aim.  We  shall,  indeed,  find  a  wider  range  and  grasp  in  one 
man  than  in  another ;  but  yet  it  will  be  our  own  fault  if  we  do 
not  discover  something  in  the  most  limited  range  of  mind  which 
is  different  from,  and  in  its  way  better  than,  anything  presented 
to  us  by  the  more  grasping  intellect.  We  all  know  that  the 
nightingale  sings  more  nobly  than  the  lark ;  but  who,  therefore, 
would  wish  the  lark  not  to  sing,  or  would  deny  that  it  had  a 
character  of  its  own,  which  bore  a  part  among  the  melodies  of 
creation  no  less  essential  than  that  of  the  more  richly-gifted 
bird  ?  And  thus  we  shall  find  and  feel  that  whatever  difference 
may  exist  between  the  intellectual  powers  of  one  artist  and 
another,  yet  wherever  there  is  any  true  genius,  there  will  be 
some  peculiar  lesson  which  even  the  humblest  will  teach  us 
more  sweetly  and  perfectly  than  those  far  above  them  in 
prouder  attributes  of  mind  ;  and  we  should  be  as  mistaken  as 
we  should  be  unjust  and  invidious,  if  we  refused  to  receive  this 
their  peculiar  message  with  gratitude  and  veneration,  merely 
because  it  was  a  sentence  and  not  a  volume.  But  the  case  is 
different  when  we  examine  their  relative  fidelity  to  given  facts. 
That  fidelity  depends  on  no  peculiar  modes  of  thought  or 
habits  of  character ;  it  is  the  result  of  keen  sensibility,  combined 
with  high  powers  of  memory  and  association.  These  qualities, 
as  such,  are  the  same  in  all  men;  character  or  feeling  may 
direct  their  choice  to  this  or  that  object,  but  the  fidelity  \\  ith 


THE    FALSE   IDEAL.  XI L 

which  they  treat  either  the  one  or  the  other,  is  dependent  on 
those  simple  powers  of  sense  and  intellect  which  are  like  and 
comparable  in  all,  and  of  which  we  can  always  say  that  they 
ai  e  greater  in  this  man,  or  less  in  that,  without  reference  to  the 
character  of  the  individual. 

I  believe  tnere  is  nearly  as  much  occasion,  at  the  present 
day,  for  advocacy  of  Michael  Angelo  against  the  pettiness  of 
the  moderns,  as  there  is  for  support  of  Turner  against  the  con- 
ventionalities of  the  ancients.  For,  though  the  names  of  the 
fathers  of  sacred  art  are  on  all  our  lips,  our  faith  in  them  ia 
much  like  that  of  the  great  world  in  its  religion — nominal,  but 
dead.  In  vain  our  lecturers  sound  the  name  of  Raffaelle  in  the 
ears  of  their  pupils,  while  their  own  works  are  visibly  at 
variance  with  every  principle  deducible  from  his.  In  vain  ia 
the  young  student  compelled  to  produce  a  certain  number  of 
school  copies  of  Michael  Angelo,  when  his  bread  must  depend 
on  the  number  of  gewgaws  he  can  crowd  into  his  canvas.  And 
I  could  with  as  much  zeal  exert  myself  against  the  modern 
system  of  English  historical  art,  as  I  have  in  favor  of  our  school 
of  landscape,  but  that  it  is  an  ungrateful"  and  painful  task  to 
attack  the  works  of  living  painters,  struggling  with  adverse 
circumstances  of  every  kind,  and  especially  with  the  false  taste 
of  a  nation  which  regards  matters  of  art  either  with  the  tick- 
lishness  of  an  infant,  or  the  stolidity  of  a  Megatherium. 

Now,  there  is  but  one  grand  style,  in  the  treatment  of  all 
subjects  whatsoever,  and  that  style  is  based  on  the  perfect 
knowledge,  and  consists  in  the  simple,  unencumbered  render 
ing,  of  the  specific  characters  of  the  given  object,  be  it  man, 
beast,  or  flower.  Every  change,  caricature,  or  abandonment 
of  such  specific  character,  is  as  destructive  of  grandeur  as  it  is 
of  truth,  of  beauty  as  of  propriety.  Every  alteration  of  the 
features  of  nature  has  its  origin  either  in  powerless  indolence 

11 


242  PAINTING. 

or  blind  audacity,  in  the  folly  which  forgets,  cr  the  insolence 
which  desecrates,  works  which  it  is  the  pride  of  angels  to  know, 
and  their  privilege  to  love. 

Painting,  or  art  generally,  as  such,  with  all  its  technicalities, 
difficulties,  and  particular  ends,  is  nothing  but  a  noble  and 
expressive  language,  invaluable  as  the  vehicle  of  thought,  but 
by  itself  nothing.  He  who  has  learned  what  is  commonly  con- 
sidered the  whole  art  of  painting,  that  is,  the  art  of  represent- 
ing any  natural  object  faithfully,  has  as  yet  only  learned  the 
language  by  which  his  thoughts  are  to  be  expressed.  He  hag 
done  just  as  much  towards  being  that  which  we  ousjht  to 
respect  as  a  great  painter,  as  a  man  who  has  learned  how  to 
express  himself  grammatically  and  melodiously  has  towards 
being  a  great  poet.  The  language  is,  indeed,  more  difficult  ol 
acquirement  in  the  one  case  than  in  the  other,  and  possesses 
more  power  of  delighting  the  sense,  while  it  speaks  to  the 
intellect,  but  it  is,  nevertheless,  nothing  more  than  language, 
and  all  those  excellences  which  are  peculiar  to  the  painter  as 
such,  are  merely  what  rhythm,  melody,  precision  and  force  are 
in  the  words  of  the  orator  and  the  poet,  necessary  to  theii 
greatness,  but  not  the  tests  of  their  greatness.  It  is  not  by 
the  mode  of  representing  and  saying,  but  by  what  is  repre- 
sented and  said,  that  the  respective  greatness  either  of  the 
painter  or  the  writer  is  to  be  finally  determined. 

Speaking  with  strict  propriety,  therefore,  we  should  call  a 
man  a  great  painter  only  as  he  excelled  in  precision  ana  force 
in  the  language  of  lines,  and  a  great  versifier,  as  he  excelled  in 
precision  or  force  in  the  language  of  words.  A  great  poet 
would  then  be  a  term  strictly,  and  in  precisely  the  same  sense 
applicable  to  both,  if  warranted  by  the  character  cf  the 
images  01  thoughts  which  each  in  their  respective  languages 
convoyed. 


THE   FALSE    IDEAL.  243 

T-ike,  for  Instance,  one  of  the  most  perfect  poems  or  picture? 
(I  use  the  words  as  synonymous)  which  modern  times  have 
seen : — the  "  Old  Shepherd's  Chief-mourner."  Here  the  exqui- 
site execution  of  the  glossy  and  crisp  hair  of  the  dog,  the 
bright  sharp  touching  of  the  green  bough  beside  it,  the  clear 
painting  of  the  wood  of  the  coffin  and  the  folds  of  the  blanket, 
are  language- -language  clear  and  expressive  in  the  highest 
degree.  But  the  close  pressure  of  the  dog's  breast  against  the 
wood,  the  convulsive  clinging  of  the  paws,  which  has  dragged 
the  blanket  off  the  trestle,  the  total  powerlessness  of  the  head 
laid,  close  and  motionless,  upon  its  folds,  the  fixed  and  tearful 
fall  of  the  eye  in  its  utter  hopelessness,  the  rigidity  of  repose 
which  marks  that  there  has  been  no  motion  nor  change  in  the 
trance  of  agony  since  the  last  blow  was  struck  on  the  coffin-lid, 
the  quietness  and  gloom  of  the  chamber,  the  spectacles  mark- 
ing the  place  where  the  Bible  was  last  closed,  indicating  how 
lonely  has  been  the  life — how  un watched  the  departure  of  him 
who  is  now  laid  solitary  in'  his  sleep  ; — these  are  all  thoughts — 
thoughts  by  which  the  picture  is  separated  at  once  from  hun- 
dreds of  equal  merit,  as  far  as  mere  painting  goes,  by  which  it 
ranks  as  a  work  of  high  art,  and  stamps  its  author,  not  as  the 
neat  imitator  of  the  texture  of  a  skin,  or  the  fold  of  a  drapery, 
but  as  the  Man  of  Mind. 

It  must  be  the  part  of  the  judicious  critic  carefully  to  dis- 
tinguish what  is  language,  and  what  is  thought,  and  to  rank 
and  praise  pictures  chiefly  for  the  latter,  considering  the  for- 
mer as  a  totally  inferior  excellence,  and  one  which  cannot  bo 
compared  with  nor  weighed  against  thought  in  any  way  nor  in 
any  degree  whatsoever.  The  picture  which  has  the  nobler 
and  more  numerous  ideas,  however  awkwardly  expressed,  is  a 
greater  and  a  better  picture  than  that  which  has  the  less  noble 
and  loss  numerous  ideas,  however  beautifully  expressed.  No 
weight,  nor  mass,  nor  beaut}  of  execution  can  outweigh  one 


244  PAINTING. 

grain  or  fragment  of  thought.  Three  penstrokes  of  Raffaelle 
are  a  greater  and  a  better  picture  than  the  most  finished  wort 
that  ever  Carlo  Dolci  polished  into  inanity.  A  finished  work 
of  a.  great  artist  is  only  better  than  its  sketch,  if  the  sources  of 
pleasure  belonging  to  color  and  realization — valuable  in  them 
selves, — are  so  employed  as  to  increase  the  impressiveness  of 
the  thought.  But  if  one  atom  of  thought  has  vanished,  all 
color,  all  finish,  all  execution,  all  ornament,  are  too  dearly 
bought.  Nothing  but  thought  can  pay  for  thought,  and  the 
instant  that  the  increasing  refinement  or  finish  of  the  picture 
begins  to  be  paid  for  by  the  loss  of  the  faintest  shadow  of  an 
idea,  that  instant  all  refinement  or  finish  is  an  excrescence,  and 
a  deformity. 

I  think  that  all  the  sources  of  pleasure,  or  any  other  good, 
to  be  derived  from  works  of  art,  may  be  referred  to  five  dis- 
tinct heads. 

I.  Ideas  of  Power. — The  perception  or  conception  of  the 
mental  or  bodily  powers  by  which  the  work  has  been 
produced. 

II.  Ideas  of  Imitation. — The  perception  that  the  thing  pro- 
duced resembles  something  else. 

III.  Ideas  of  Truth. — The  perception  of  faithfulness  in  a  state- 

ment of  facts  by  the  thing  produced. 

IV.  Ideas  of  Beauty. — The  perception  of  beauty,  either  in  the 

thing  produced,  or  in  what  it  suggests  or  resembles. 
V.  Ideas  of  Relation. — The  perception  of  intellectual  rela- 
tions, in  the  thing  produced,  or  in  what  it  suggests  or 
resembles. 

I  shall  briefly  distinguish  the  nature  and  effects  of  each  or 
these  classes  of  ideas. 

I.  Ideas  of  Power. — These  arc  the  simple  perception  of  the 
mental  or  bodily  powers  exerted  in  the  production  of  any 
work  of  art.  According  to  the  dignity  and  degree  of  th* 


IDEAS    OF    IMITATION.  245 

power  perceived  is  the  dignity  of  the  idea ;  but  the  whole  class 
of  ideas  is  received  by  the  intellect,  and  they  excite  the  best 
of  the  moral  feelings,  veneration,  and  the  desire  of  exertion, 
Men  may  let  their  great  powers  lie  dormant,  while  they  em- 
ploy their  mean  and  petty  powers  on  mean  and  petty  objects  • 
but  it  is  physically  impossible  to  employ  a  great  power,  except 
on  a  great  object.  Consequently,  wherever  power  of  any  kind 
or  degree  has  been  exerted,  the  marks  and  evidence  of  it  are 
stamped  upon  its  results:  it  is  impossible  that  it  should  be 
lost  or  wasted,  or  without  record,  even  in  the  "  estimation  of 
a  hair:"  and  therefore,  whatever  has  been  the  subject  of  a 
great  power,  bears  about  with  it  the  image  of  that  which 
created  it,  and  is  what  is  commonly  called  "  excellent."  And 
this  is  the  true  meaning  of  the  word  excellent,  as  distinguished 
from  the  terms,  "  beautiful,"  "  useful,"  "  good,"  etc. ;  and  we 
shall  always,  in  future,  use  the  word  excellent,  as  signifying 
that  the  thing  to  which  it  is  applied  required  a  great  power 
for  its  production. 


n.    IDEAS    OF   IMITATION'. 

Whenever  anything  looks  like  what  it  is  not,  the  resemblance 
being  so  great  as  nearly  to  deceive,  we  feel  a  kind  of  pleasura- 
ble surprise,  an  agreeable  excitement  of  mind,  exactly  the  same 
in  its  nature  as  that  which  we  receive  from  juggling.  When 
ever  we  perceive  this  in  something  produced  by  art,  that  is  to 
say,  whenever  the  work  is  seen  to  resemble  something  which 
we  know  it  is  not,  we  receive  what  I  call  an  idea  of  imitation. 
IfVhy  such  ideas  are  pleasing,  it  would  be  out  of  our  present 
purpose  to  inquire ;  we  only  know  that  there  is  no  man  who 
does  not  feel  pleasure  in  his  animal  nature  from  gentle  surprise, 


246  TAINTING. 

and  that  such  surprise  can  be  excited  hi  uo  more  distinct  man 
uer  than  by  the  evidence  that  a  thing  is  not  what  it  appears  to 
be.  Now  two  things  are  requisite  to  our  complete  and  more 
pleasurable  perception  of  this :  first,  that  the  resemblance  be 
so  perfect  as  to  amount  to  a  deception ;  secondly,  that  there 
bt  some  means  of  proving  at  the  same  moment  that  it  is  a 
deception.  The  most  perfect  ideas  and  pleasures  of  imitation 
are,  therefore,  when  one  sense  is  contradicted  by  another,  both 
bearing  as  positive  evidence  on  the  subject  as  each  is  capable 
of  alone ;  as  when  the  eye  says  a  thing  is  round,  and  the  finger 
says  it  is  flat ;  they  are,  therefore,  never  felt  in  so  high  a  degree 
us  in  painting,  where  appearance  of  projection,  roughness,  hair, 
velvet,  etc.,  are  given  with  a  smooth  surface,  or  in  wax-work, 
where  the  first  evidence  of  the  senses  is  perpetually  contra- 
dicted by  their  experience ;  but  the  moment  we  come  to  mar- 
ble, our  definition  checks  us,  for  a  marble  figure  does  not  look 
like  what  it  is  not ;  it  looks  like  marble,  and  like  the  form  of  a 
man,  but  then  it  is  marble,  and  it  is  the  form  of  a  man.  It 
does  not  look  like  a  man,  which  it  is  not,  but  like  the  form  of 
a  man,  which  it  is.  Form  is  form,  bond  fide  and  actual, 
whether  in  marble  or  in  flesh — not  an  imitation  or  resemblance 
of  form,  but  real  form.  The  chalk  outline  of  the  bough  of  a 
tree  on  paper,  is  not  an  imitation ;  it  looks  like  chalk  and 
paper — not  like  wood,  and  that  which  it  suggests  to  the  mind 
is  not  properly  said  to  be  like  the  form  of  a  bough,  it  is  the 
form  of  a  bough. 


III. — IDEAS  OF  TRUTH. 


The  word  truth,  as  applied  to  art,  signifies  the  faithful 
statement,  either  to  the  mind  or  senses,  of  any  fact  of  nature. 


IDEAS    OF   TRUTH.  247 

"We  receive  an  idea  of  truth,  then,  when  we  perceive  the 
faithfulness  of  such  a  statement. 

The  difference  between  ideas  of  truth  and  of  imitation  lies 
chiefly  in  the  following  points. 

First, — Imitation  can  only  be  of  something  material,  but 
truth  has  reference  to  statements  both  of  the  qualities  of 
material  things,  and  of  emotions,  impressions,  and  thoughts. 
There  is  a  moral  as  well  as  material  truth, — a  truth  of  impres- 
sion as  well  as  of  form, — of  thought  as  well  as  of  matter;  and 
the  truth  of  impression  and  thought  is  a  thousand  times  the 
more  important  of  the  two.  Hence,  truth  is  a  term  of  universal 
application,  but  imitation  is  limited  to  that  narrow  field  of  art 
which  takes  cognizance  only  of  material  things. 

Secondly, — Truth  may  be  stated  by  any  signs  or  symbols 
which  have  a  definite  signification  in  the  minds  of  those  to 
whom  they  are  addressed,  although  such  signs  be  themselves 
no  image  nor  likeness  of  anything.  Whatever  can  excite  in  the 
mind  the  conception  of  certain  facts,  can  give  ideas  of  truth, 
though  it  be  in  no  degree  the  imitation  or  resemblance  of  those 
facts.  If  there  be — we  do  not  say  there  is, — but  if  there  be  in 
painting  anything  which  operates,  as  words  do,  not  by  resem- 
bling anything,  but  by  being  taken  as  a  symbol  and  sub- 
stitute for  it,  and  thus  inducing  the  effect  of  it,  then  this 
channel  of  communication  can  convey  uncorrupted  truth, 
though  it  do  not  in  any  degree  resemble  the  facts  whose  con- 
ception it  induces.  But  ideas  of  imitation,  of  course,  require 
the  likeness  of  the  object.  They  speak  to  the  percepthn 
faculties  only:  truth  to  the  conceptive. 

Thirdly, — And  in  consequence  of  what  is  above  stated,  an 
i  lea  of  truth  exists  in  the  statement  of  one  attribute  of  anything, 
but  an  i  lea  of  imitation  requires  the  resemblance  of  as  many 
attributes  as  we  are  usually  cognizant  of  in  its  real  presence. 

The  ether  day  at  Bruges,  while  I  was  endeavoring  to  se! 


248  PAINTING. 

down  in  my  notebook  something  of  the  ineffeable  expression 
of  the  Madonna  in  the  cathedral,  a  French  amateur  came  up  to 
me,  to  inquire  if  I  had  seen  the  modern  French  pictures  in  a 
neighboring  church.  I  had  not,  but  felt  little  inclined  to  leave 
my  marble  for  all  the  canvas  that  ever  suffered  from  French 
brushes.  My  apathy  was  attacked  with  gradually  increasing 
energy  of  praise.  Rubens  never  executed — Titian  never  colored 
anything  like  them.  I  thought  this  highly  probable,  and  still 
sat  quiet.  The  voice  continued  at  my  ear.  "Parbleu,  Monsieur, 
Michel  Ange  n'a  rien  produit  de  plus  beau !"  "  De  plus  beau fn 
repeated  I,  wishing  to  know  what  particular  excellences  of 
Michael  Angelo  were  to  be  intimated  by  this  expression 
"Monsieur,  on  ne  peut  plus — c'est  un  tableau  admirable — 
inconcevable :  Monsieur,"  said  the  Frenchman,  lifting  up  his 
hands  to  heaven,  as  he  concentrated  in  one  conclusive  and 
overwhelming  proposition  the  qualities  which  were  to  outshine 
Rubens  and  overpower  Buonaroti, — "Monsieur,  IL  SORT!" 

This  gentleman  could  only  perceive  two  truths — flesh  color 
and  projection.  These  constituted  his  notion  of  the  perfection 
of  painting ;  because  they  unite  all  that  is  necessary  for  decep- 
tion. Pie  was  not  therefore  cognizant  of  many  ideas  of  truth, 
though  perfectly  cognizant  of  ideas  of  imitation. 


IV. IDEAS  OF  BEAUTY. 

Ideas  of  beauty  are  among  the  noblest  which  can  be  presented 
to  the  human  mind,  invariably  exalting  and  purifying  it  accord- 
ing to  their  degree ;  and  it  would  appear  that  we  are  intended 
by  the  Deity  to  be  constantly  under  their  influence,  because 
there  is  not  one  single  object  in  nature  which  is  not  capable  of 
conveying  them,  and  which  to  the  rightly  perceiving  mind, 


IDEAS    OF    UEI.ATlOSr.  249 

does  not  pi  esent  an  incalculably  greater  number  of  beautiful 
than  of  deformed  parts  ;  there  being  in  fact  scarcely  anything, 
in  pure,  undiseased  nature,  like  positive  deformity,  but  only 
degrees  of  beauty,  or  such  slight  and  rare  points  of  permitted 
contrast  as  may  render  all  around  them  more  valuable  by  thoil 
opposition ;  spots  of  blackness  in  creation,  to  make  its  colors  felt. 


V. IDEAS  OF  RELATION. 

Under  this  head  must  be  arranged  everything  productive 
of  expression,  sentiment,  and  character,  whether  in  figures  or 
landscapes,  (for  there  may  be  as  much  definite  expression  and 
marked  carrying  out  of  particular  thoughts  in  the  treatment  of 
inanimate  as  of  animate  nature,)  everything  relating  to  the 
conception  of  the  subject  and  to  the  congruity  and  relation  of 
its  parts ;  not  as  they  enhance  each  other's  beauty  by  known 
and  constant  laws  of  composition,  but  as  they  give  each  .other 
expression  and  meaning,  by  particular  application,  requiring 
distinct  thought  to  discover  or  to  enjoy :  the  choice,  for  instance, 
of  a  particular  lurid  or  appalling  light,  to  illustrate  an  incident 
in  itself  terrible,  or  of  a  particular  tone  of  pure  color  to  prepare 
the  mind  for  the  expression  of  refined  and  delicate  feeling ;  and, 
in  a  still  higher  sense,  the  invention  of  such  incidents  and 
thoughts  as  can  be  expressed  in  words  as  well  as  on  canvas, 
and  are  totally  independent  of  any  means  of  art  but  such  as  may 
serve  for  the  bare  suggestion  of  them.  The  principal  object  in 
the  foreground  of  Turner's  "Building  of  Carthage"  is  a  group 
of  children  sailing  toy  boats.  The  exquisite  choice  of  this 
incident,  as  expressive  of  the  ruling  passion,  which  was  to  be 
tlu1  source  of  future  greatness,  in  preference  to  the  tumult  of 
busy  stone-masons  or  arming  soldiers,  is  quite  as  appreciable 

!!* 


250  PAINTIXG. 

when  it  Is  told  as  \vhen  it  is  seen, — it  has  nothing  to  do  \\  tth  the 
technicalities  of  painting;  a  scratch  of  the  pen  would  have 
conveyed  the  idea  and  spoken  to  the  intellect  as  much  as  the 
elaborate  realizations  of  color.  Such  a  thought  as  this  is  sorno 
thing  far  above  all  art;  it  is  epic  poetry  of  the  highest  order. 

By  the  term  "  ideas  of  relation,"  then,  I  mean  in  future  tc 
express  all  those  sources  of  pleasure,  which  involve  and  require, 
at  the  instant  of  their  perception,  active  exertion  of  the  intel- 
lectual powers. 

Sublimity  is  not  a  specific  term, — not  a  term  descriptive  of 
the  effect  of  a  particular  class  of  ideas.  Anything  which 
elevates  the  mind  is  sublime,  and  the  elevation  of  mind  ia 
produced  by  the  contemplation  of  greatness  of  any  kind  ;  but 
chiefly,  of  course,  by  the  greatness  of  the  noblest  things. 
Sublimity  is,  therefore,  only  another  word  for  the  effect  of 
greatness  upon  the  feelings.  Greatness  of  matter,  space,  power, 
virtue,  or  beauty,  are  thus  all  sublime;  and  there  is  perhaps  no 
desirable  quality  of  a  work  of  art,  which  in  its  perfection  is  not, 
in  some  way  or  degree,  sublime. 

I  am  fully  prepared  to  allow  of  much  ingenuity  in  Burke'3 
theory  of  the  sublime,  as  connected  with  self-preservation. 
There  are  few  things  so  great  as  death  ;  and  there  is  perhaps 
nothing  which  banishes  all  littleness  of  thought  and  feeling  in 
an  equal  degree  with  its  contemplation.  Everything,  therefore, 
which  in  any  way  points  to  it,  and,  therefore,  most  dan-'Ts 
and  powers  over  which  we  have  little  control,  are  in  some 
degree  sublime.  But  it  is  not  the  fear,  observe,  but  the  con- 
templation of  death;  not  the  instinctive  shudder  and  struggle 
of  self-preservation,  but  the  deliberate  measurement  of  the 
doom,  which  are  really  great  or  sublime  in  feeling.  It  is  not 
\\hile  we  shrink,  but  while  we  defy,  that  we  receive  or  convey 
the  highest  conceptions  of  the  fate.  There  is  no  sublimity  m 
the  jigony  of  terror.  Whether  do  we  trace  it  most  in  the  cry 


IDEAS    OF    RELATION.  £51 

to  the  mountains,  "fall  on  us,"  and  to  the  hills,  "cover  us,''  or 
in  the  calmness  of  the  prophecy — "And  though  after  my  skin 
worms  destroy  this  body,  yet  in  my  flesh  I  shall  see  God  ?" 
A  little  reflection  Avill  easily  convince  any  one,  that  so  far  from 
the  feelings  of  self-preservation  being  necessary  to  the  sublime, 
their  greatest  action  is  totally  destructive  of  it;  and  that  there 
are  few  feelings  less  capable  of  its  perception  than  those  of  a 
coward.  But  the  simple  conception  or  idea  of  greatness  of 
suffering  or  extent  of  destruction  is  sublime,  whether  there  be 
any  connection  of  that  idea  with  ourselves  or  not.  If  we  were 
placed  beyond  the  reach  of  all  peril  or  pain,  the  perception  of 
these  agencies  in  their  influence  on  others  Avould  not  be  less 
sublime,  not  because  peril  or  pain  are  sublime  in  their  own 
nature,  but  because  their  contemplation,  exciting  compassion 
or  fortitude,  elevates  the  mind,  and  renders  meanness  of 
thought  impossible. 

The  truths  of  nature  are  one  eternal  change — one  infinite 
variety.  There  is  no  bush  on  the  face  of  the  globe  exactly 
like  another  bush ; — there  are  no  two  trees  in  the  forest  whose 
boughs  bend  into  the  same  network,  nor  two  leaves  on  the 
'  same  tree  which  could  not  be  told  one  from  the  other,  nor  two 
waves  in  the  sea  exactly  alike.  And  out  of  this  mass  of 
various,  yet  agreeing  beauty,  it  is  by  long  attention  only  that 
the  conception  of  the  constant  character — the  ideal  form — 
hinted  at  by  ail,  yet  assumed  by  none,  is  fixed  upon  the  ima- 
gination for  its  standard  of  truth. 

It  is  not  singular,  therefore,  nor  in  any  way  disgraceful,  that 
the  majority  of  spectators  are  totally  incapable  of  appreci- 
ating the  truth  of  nature,  when  fully  set  before  them  ;  but  it 
is  both  singular  and  disgraceful  that  it  is  so  difficult  to  con- 
vince them  of  their  own  incapability.  Ask  the  connoisseur, 
who  has  scampered  over  all  Europe,  the  shape  of  the  leaf  of 
an  elm  and  the  chances  are  ninety  to  one  that  he  cannot  tell 


252  .  .  PAINTIXG. 

you  j  and  yet  he  will  be  voluble  of  criticism  on  every  paintc  d 
landscape  from  Dresden  to  Madrid,  and  pretend  to  tell  you 
whether  they  are  like  nature  or  not.  Ask  an  enthusiastic 
chatterer  in  the  Sistine  Chapel,  how  many  ribs  he  has,  and 
you  get  no  answer ;  but  it  is  odds  that  you  do  not  get  out  of 
the  door  without  his  informing  you  that  he  considers  sucb 
and  such  a  figure  badly  drawn ! 

A  few  such  interrogations  as  these  might  indeed  convict  if 
not  convince  the  mass  of  spectators  of  incapability,  were  it 
not  for  the  universal  reply,  that  they  can  recognize  what  they 
cannot  describe,  and  feel  what  is  truthful,  though  they  do  not 
know  what  is  truth.  And  this  is,  to  a  certain  degree,  true  ;  a 
man  may  recognize  the  portrait  of  his  friend,  though  he  can- 
not, if  you  ask  him  apart,  tell  you  the  shape  of  his  nose  or  the 
height  of  his  forehead ;  and  every  one  could  tell  Nature  her- 
self from  an  imitation  ;  why  not  then,  it  will  be  asked,  what  is 
like  her  from  what  is  not  ?  For  this  simple  reason,  that  we 
constantly  recognize  things  by  their  least  important  attributes, 
and  by  help  of  very  few  of  those :  and  if  these  attributes 
exist  not  in  the  imitation,  though"  there  may  be  thousands  of 
others  far  higher  and  more  valuable,  yet  if  those  be  wanting, 
or  imperfectly  rendered,  by  which  we  are  accustomed  to 
recognize  the  object,  we  deny  the  likeness. 

Mrs.  Jameson  somewhere  mentions  the  exclamation  of  a 
lady  of  her  acquaintance,  more  desirous  to  fill  a  pause  In  con- 
versation than  abundant  in  sources  of  observation:  "What 
an  excellent  book  the  Bible  is !"  This  was  a  very  general 
truth  indeed ;  a  truth  predicable  of  the  Bible  in  common 
with  many  other  books,  but  it  certainly  is  neither  striking  nor 
important.  Had  the  lady  exclaimed — "  How  evidently  is  the 
Bible  a  divine  revelation  !"  she  would  have  expressed  a  par- 
ticular truth,  one  predicable  of  the  Bible  only ;  but  certainly 
far  more  interesting  and  important.  Had  she,  on  the  con 


IDEAS    OF    UELATIOX.  253 

trary,  informed  us  that  the  Bible  was  a  book,  she  would  have 
been  still  move  general,  and  still  less  entertaining.  If  I  ask 
any  one  who  somebody  else  is,  and  receive  for  answer  that  he 
is  a  man,  I  get  little  satisfaction  for  my  pains  ;  but  if  I  am  told 
that  he  is  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  I  immediately  thank  my  neighbor 
tor  his  information.  The  fact  is,  and  the  above  instances  may 
serve  at  once  to  prove  it  if  it  be  not  self-evident,  that  gene 
rality  gives  importance  to  the  subject,  and  limitation  or  parti- 
cularity to  the  predicate*  If  I  say  that  such  and  such  a  man 
in  China  is  an  opium  eater,  I  say  nothing  very  interesting, 
because  my  subject  (such  a  man)  is  particular.  If  I  say  that 
all  men  in  China  are  opium  eaters,  I  say  something  interesting, 
because  my  subject  (all  men)  is  general.  If  I  say  that  all  men 
in  China  eat,  I  say  nothing  interesting,  because  my  predicate 
(eat)  is  general.  If  I  say  that  all  men  in  China  eat  opium,  I 
say  something  interesting,  because  my  predicate  (eat  opium) 
is  particular. 

Xow  almost  everything  which  (with  reference  to  a  given 
subject)  a  painter  has  to  ask  himself  whether  he  shall  repre- 
sent or  not,  is  a  predicate.  Hence  in  art,  particular  truths 
are  usually  more  important  than  general  ones. 

What  should  we  think  of  a  poet  who  should  keep  all  his 
life  repeating  the  same  thought  in  different  words  ?  and  why 
should  we  be  more  lenient  to  the  parrot-painter  who  haa 
learned  one  lesson  from  the  page  of  nature,  and  keeps  stam- 
mering it  out  with  eternal  repetition  without  turning  the  leaf? 
Is  it  less  tautology  to  describe  a  thing  over  and  over  again 
with  lines,  than  it  is  with  words  ?  The  teaching  of  nature  ia 
as  varied  and  infinite  as  it  is  constant;  and  the  duty  of  t ho 
painter  is  to  watch  for  every  one  of  her  lessons,  and  to  give 
(for  human  life  will  admit  of  nothing  more)  those  in  which  she 
has  manifested  each  of  her  principles  in  the  most  peculiar  and 
striking  way.  The  deeper  his  research  and  the  rarer  the  phe 


254  PAIXT1XG. 

nomena  he  has  noted,  the  more  valuable  \v.ll  his  works  bo;  to 
repeat  himself,  even  in  a  single  instance,  is  treachery  to  nature. 
for  a  thousand  human  lives  would  not  be  enough  to  give  one 
instance  of  the  perfect  manifestation  of  each  of  her  powers; 
and  as  for  combining  or  classifying  them,  as  well  might  a 
preacher  expect  in  one  sermon  to  express  and  explain  every 
divine  truth  which  can  be  gathered  out  of  God's  revelation,  as 
a  painter  expect  in  one  composition  to  express  and  illustrate 
every  lesson  which  can  be  received  from  God's  creation.  Both 
are  commentators  on  infinity,  and  the  duty  of  both  is  to  take 
for  each  discourse  one  essential  truth,  seeking  particularly  and 
insisting  especially  on  those  which  are  less  palpable  to  ordinary 
observation,  and  more  likely  to  escape  an  indolent  research ; 
and  to  impress  that,  and  that  alone,  upon  those  whom  they 
address,  with  every  illustration  that  can  be  furnished  by  their 
knowledge,  and  every  adornment  attainable  by  their  power. 
And  the  real  truthfulness  of  the  painter  is  in  proportion  to  the 
number  and  variety  of  the  facts  he  has  so  illustrated ;  those 
facts  being  always,  as  above  observed,  the  realization,  not  the 
violation  of  a  general  principle.  The  quantity  of  truth  is  in 
proportion  to  the  number  of  such  facts,  and  its  value  and 
instructiveness  in  proportion  to  their  rarity.  All  really  iriv;it 
pictures,  therefore,  exhibit  the  general  habits  of  nature,  mani- 
fested in  some  peculiar,  rare,  and  beautiful  way. 

By  Locke's  definition  of  bodies,  only  bulk,  figure,  situation, 
and  motion  or  rest  of  solid  parts,  are  primary  qualities.  Hence 
all  truths  of  color  sink  at  once  into  the  second  rank.  He, 
therefore,  who  has  neglected  a  truth  of  form  for  a  truth  of 
color,  has  neglected  a  greater  truth  fer  a  less  one. 

And  that  color  is  indeed  a  most  unimportant  characteristic 
of  objects,  will  be  farther  evident  on  the  slightest  considera- 
tion. The  color  of  plants  is  constantly  changing  wMi  the  .ce;v 
eon,  and  of  everything  with  the  quality  of  light  falling  on  it, 


IDEAS    OF    RELATION.  255 

but  the  nature  and  essence  of  the  thing  are  independent  of 
these  changes.  An  oak  is  an  oak,  whether  green  with  spring 
or  red  with  winter ;  a  dahlia  is  a  dahlia,  whether  it  be  yellow 
or  crimson  ;  and  if  some  monster-hunting  botanist  should  evei 
frighten  the  flower  blue,  still  it  will  be  a  dahlia;  but  let  one 
curve  of  the  petals — one  groove  of  the  stamens  be  wanting, 
and  the  flower  ceases  to  be  the  same.  Let  the  roughness  of 
the  bark  and  the  angles  of  the  boughs  be  smoothed  or  dimi- 
nished, and  the  oak  ceases  to  be  an  oak ;  but  let  it  retain  its 
inward  structure  and  outward  form,  and  though  its  leaves  grew 
white,  or  pink,  or  blue,  or  tri-color,  it  would  be  a  white  oak, 
or  a  pink  oak,  or  a  republican  oak,  but  an  oak  still.  Again, 
color  is  hardly  ever  even  a  possible  distinction  between  two 
objbots  of  the  same  species.  Two  trees,  of  the  same  kind,  at 
the  same  season,  and  of  the  same  age,  are  of  absolutely  the 
same  color ;  but  they  are  not  of  the  same  form,  nor  anything 
like  it.  There  can  be  no  difference  in  the  color  of  two  pieces 
of  rock  broken  from  the  same  place ;  but  it  is  impossible  they 
should  be  of  the  same  form.  So  that  form  is  not  only  the 
chief  characteristic  of  species,  but  the  only  characteristic  of 
individuals  of  a  species.  Again,  a  color,  in  association  with 
other  colors,  is  different  from  the  same  color  seen  by  itself. 
It  has  a  distinct  and  peculiar  power  upon  the  retina  dependent 
on  its  association.  Consequently,  the  color  of  any  object  is 
not  more  dependent  upon  the  nature  of  the  object  itself,  and 
the  eye  beholding  it,  than  on  the  color  of  the  objects  near  it ; 
in  this  respect  also,  therefore,  it  is  no  characteristic. 

Invention  is  in  landscape  nothing  more  than  appropriate 
recollection — (good  in  proportion  as  it  is  distinct.)  Then  let 
the  details  of  the  foreground  be  separately  studied,  especially 
those  plants  which  appear  peculiar  to  the  place :  if  any  one, 
however  unimportant,  occurs  there,  which  occurs  not  else- 
where, it  should  occupy  a  prominent  position  ;  for  the  other 


256  PAIXT1NG. 

details,  the  highest  examples  of  the  ideal  forms*  or  characters 
which  he  requires  are  to  be  selected  by  the  artist  from  his 

*  "  Talk  of  improving  nature  when  it  is  nature — Nonsense." — E.  V.  L'>i<- 
pingille,  I  have  not  yet  spoken  of  the  difference — even  in  what  we  com- 
monly call  Nature — between  imperfect  and  ideal  form :  the  study  of  ttiii 
difficult  question  must,  of  course,  be  deferred  until  we  have  examined  the 
nature  of  our  impressions  of  beauty ;  but  it  may  not  be  out  of  place  here  tc 
hint  at  the  want  of  care  hi  many  of  our  artists  to  distinguish  between  tho 
real  work  of  nature  and  the  diseased  results  of  man's  interference  with  her 
Many  of  the  works  of  our  greatest  artists  have  for  their  subjects  nothing  but 
hacked  and  hewn  remnants  of  farm-yard  vegetation,  branded  root  and  branch, 
from  their  birth,  by  the  prong  and  the  pruning-hook ;  and  the  feelings  once 
accustomed  to  take  pleasure  in  such  abortions,  can  scarcely  become  percep- 
tive of  forms  truly  ideal.  I  have  just  said  (417)  that  young  painters  should 
go  to  nature  trustingly, — rejecting  nothing,  and  selecting  nothing:  so  they 
should ;  but  they  must  be  careful  that  it  is  nature  to  whom  they  go — nature 
in  her  liberty — not  as  servant-of-all-work  in  the  hands  of  the  agriculturist, 
nor  stiffened  into  court-dress  by  the  landscape  gardener.  It  must  be  the  pure, 
wild  volition  and  energy  of  the  creation  which  they  follow — not  subdued  to 
the  furrow,  and  cicatrized  to  the  pollard — not  persuaded  into  proprieties,  nor 
pampered  into  diseases.  Let  them  work  by  the  torrent  side,  and  in  the  forest 
shadows ;  not  by  purling  brooks  and  under  "  tonsile  shades. '  It  is  impossi- 
ble to  enter  here  into  discussion  of  what  man  can  or  cr.nnot  do,  by  assisting  na- 
tural operations :  it  is  an  intricate  question :  nor  can  I,  without  anticipating 
what  I  shall  have  hereafter  to  advance,  show  how  or  why  it  happens  that 
the  race  horse  is  not  the  artist's  ideal  of  a  horse,  nor  a  prize  tulip  his  ideal  of 
n  Bower ;  but  so  it  is.  As  far  as  the  painter  is  concerned,  man  never  touches 
nature  but  to  spoil ;  he  operates  on  her  as  a  barber  would  on  the  Apollo ; 
and  if  he  sometimes  increases  some  particular  power  or  excellence, — strength 
or  agility  in  the  animal,  tallness,  or  fruitfulness,  or  solidity  in  the  tree. — he 
invariably  loses  that  balance  of  good  qualities  which  is  the  chief  sign  of  per- 
fect specific  form ;  above  all,  he  destroys  the  appearance  of  free  volition  and 
felicity,  which,  as  I  shall  show  hereafter,  is  one  of  the  essential  characters  of 
organic  beauty.  Until,  however,  I  can  enter  into  the  discussion  of  the 
nature  of  beauty,  the  only  advice  I  can  safely  give  the  young  painter,  is  to 
keep  clear  of  clover-fields  and  parks,  and  to  hold  to  the  impenetrated  forest 
m*J  the  unfurrowed  hill.  There  hd  will  find  that  every  influence  is  nolle 


IDEAS    OF    RELATION.  257 

former  studies,  or  fresh  studies  made  expressly  for  the  pur 
pose,  leaving  as  little  as  possible — beyond  their  connection  and 
arrangement-  -to  mere  imagination.  When  his  picture  is  per- 
fectly realized  in  all  its  parts,  let  him  dash  as  much  of  it  out 
as  he  likes ;  throw,  if  he  will,  mist  around  it,  darkness,  01 
dazzling  and  confused  light — whatever,  in  fact,  impetuous 
feeling  or  vigorous  imagination  may  dictate  or  desire  ;  the 
forms,  once  so  laboriously  realized,  will  come  out,  whenever 
they  do  occur,  with  a  startling  and  impressive  truth,  which 
the  uncertainty  in  which  they  are  veiled  will  enhance  rather 
than  diminish,  and  the  imagination  strengthened  by  discipline, 
and  fed  with  truth,  will  achieve  the  utmost  of  creation  that  ia 
possible  to  finite  mind. 

Our  landscapes  are  all  descriptive,  not  reflective ;  agreeable 
and  conversational,  but  not  impressive  nor  didactic  They 
have  no  other  foundation  than 

"  That  vivacious  versatility, 
"Which  many  people  take  for  want  of  heart. 
They  err ;  'tis  merely  what  is  called  '  mobility ;' 
A  thing  of  temperament,  and  not  of  art, 
Thourjh  seeming  so  from  its  supposed  facility. 

*  *  #  #  * 

This  makes  your  actors,  artists,  and  romancers; 
Little  that's  great — but  much  of  what  is  clever." 

Only  it  is  to  be  observed  that — in  painters — this  vivacity  ia 
not  always  versatile.  It  is  to  be  wished  that  it  were,  but  it  ia 

even  when  destructive — that  decay  itself  is  beautiful, — and  that,  in  the  ela- 
borate and  lovely  composition  of  all  tilings,  if  at  first  sight  it  seem  less 
studied  than  the  works  of  men,  the  appearance  of  Art  is  only  prevented  by 
the  presence  of  Power. 

"  Xature  never  did  betray 
The  heart  that  loved  her:  'tis  her  privilege 
Through  all  the  years  of  this  our  life  to  lead 
From  joy  to  joy." 


258  PAINTING. 

no  such  easy  matter  to  be  versatile  in  painting.  SI.  ill  own  ess 
of  thought  insures  not  its  variety,  nor  rapidity  of  production 
its  originality. 

Let  then  every  picture  be  painted  with  earnest  intention  of 
impressing  on  the  spectator  some  elevated  emotion,  and  ex- 
hibiting to  .him  some  one  particular,  but  exalted,  beauty.  Let 
a  real  subject  be  carefully  selected,  in  itself  suggestive  of,  and 
replete  with,  this  feeling  and  beauty.  All  repetition  is  degra- 
dation of  the  art;  it  reduces  it  from  headwork  to  handwork; 
and  indicates  something  like  a  persuasion  on  the  part  of  the 
artist  that  nature  is  exhaustible  or  art  perfectible;  perhaps, 
even,  by  him  exhausted  and  perfected.  All  copyists  are  con- 
temptible, but  the  copyist  of  himself  the  most  so,  for  he  has 
the  worst  original. 

In  the  range  of  inorganic  nature,  I  doubt  if  any  object  can 
be  found  more  perfectly  beautiful  than  a  fresh,  deep  snow- 
drift, seen  under  warm  light.  Its  curves  are  of  inconceivable 
perfection  and  changefulness,  its  surface  and  transparency 
alike  exquisite,  its  light  and  shade  of  inexhaustible  variety 
and  inimitable  finish,  the  shadows  sharp,  pale,  and  of  heavenly 
color,  the  reflected  lights  intense  and  multitudinous,  and  min- 
gled with  the  sweet  occurrences  of  transmitted  light.  No 
mortal  hand  can  approach  the  majesty  or  loveliness  of  it,  yet 
it  is  possible  by  care  and  skill  at  least  to  suggest  the  precious- 
ness  of  its  forms  and  intimate  the  nature  of  its  light  and 
shade ;  but  this  has  never  been  attempted ;  it  could  not  be 
done  except  by  artists  of  a  rank  exceedingly  high,  and  there 
is  something  about  the  feeling  of  snow  in  ordinary  scenery 
which  such  men  do  not  like.  But  when  the  same  qualities  are 
exhibited  on  a  magnificent  Alpine  scale  and  in  a  position 
where  they  interfere  with  no  leelii.g  of  life,  I  see  not  why 
they  should  be  neglected,  as  they  have  hitherto  been,  unless 


IDEAS    OF    DELATION.  259 

thai  the  difficulty  of  reconciling  the  brilliancy  of  snow  with  a 
picturesque  light  and  shade,  is  so  great  that  most  good  artists 
disguise  or  avoid  the  greater  part  of  upper  Alpine  scenery, 
and  hint  at  the  glacier  so  slightly,  that  they  do  not  feel  the 
necessity  of  careful  study  of  its  forms.  Habits  of  exaggera 
tinn  increase  the  evil :  I  have  seen  a  sketch  from  nature,  by 
one  of  the  most  able  of  our  landscape  painters,  in  which  a 
cloud  had  been  mistaken  for  a  snowy  summit,  and  the  hint 
thus  taken  exaggerated,  as  was  likely,  into  an  enormous  mas? 
of  impossible  height,  and  unintelligent  form,  when  the  moun 
t:rn  itself,  for  which  the  cloud  had  been  mistaken,  though 
subtending  an  angle  of  about  eighteen  or  twenty  degrees, 
instead  of  the  fifty  attributed  to  it,  was  of  a  form  so  exquisite 
that  it  might  have  been  a  profitable  lesson  truly  studied  to 
Phidias.  Xothing  but  failure  can  result  from  such  methods  of 
sketching,  nor  have  I  ever  seen  a  single  instance  of  an  earnest 
study  of  snowy  mountains  by  any  one.  Hence,  wherever 
they  are  introduced,  their  drawing  is  utterly  unintelligent,  the 
forms  being  those  of  white  rocks,  or  of  rocks  lightly  pow- 
dered with  snow,  showing  sufficiently  that  not  only  the  paint 
ers  have  never  studied  the  mountain  carefully  from  below, 
but  that  they  have  never  climbed  into  the  snowy  region. 

A  man  accustomed  to  the  broad,  wild  sea-shore,  with  its 
bright  breakers,  and  free  winds,  and  sounding  rocks,  and  eter- 
nal sensation  of  tameless  power,  can  scarcely  but  be  angered 
when  Claude  bids  him  stand  still  on  some  paltry,  chipped  and 
chiselled  quay,  with  porters  and  wheelbarrows  running  against 
him,  to  watch  a  weak,  rippling,  bound  and  barriered  water, 
that  has  not  strength  enough  in  one  of  its  waves  to  upset  the 
flower-pots  on  the  wall,  or  even  to  fiing  one  jet  of  spray  over 
the  confining  stone.  A  man  accustomed  to  the  strength  and 
glory  of  God's  mountains,  with  their  soaring  and  radiant  pin- 


260  PAINTING. 

nacles,  and  surging  sweeps  of  measureless  distance,  kingdomf 
in  their  valleys,  and  climates  upon  their  crests,  can  scarcely 
but  be  angered  when  Salvator  bids  him  stand  still  uudei 
some  contemptible  fragment  of  splintery  crag,  which  an  Alpine 
enow-wreath  would  smother  in  its  first  swell,  with  a  stunted 
oush  or  two  growing  out  of  it,  and  a  volume  of  manufactoi  y 
smoke  for  a  sky.  A  man  accustomed  to  the  grace  and  infinity 
of  nature's  foliage,  with  every  vista  a  cathedral,  and  every 
bough  a  revelation,  can  scarcely  but  be  angered  when  Poussin 
mocks  him  with  a  black  round  mass  of  impenetrable  paint, 
diverging  into  feathers  instead  of  leaves,  and  supported  on  a 
stick  instead  of  a  trunk.  The  fact  is,  there  is  one  thing  want- 
ing in  all  the  doing  of  these  men,  and  that  is  the  very  virtue 
by  which  the  work  of  human  mind  chiefly  rises  above  that  of 
the  Daguerreotype  or  Calotype,  or  any  other  mechanical 
means  that  ever  have  been  or  may  be  invented,  Love :  There 
is  no  evidence  of  their  ever  having  gone  to  nature  with  any 
thirst,  or  receive  from  her  such  emotion  as  could  make  them, 
even  for  an  instant,  lose  sight  of  themselves ;  there  is  in  them 
neither  earnestness  nor  humility ;  there  is  no  simple  or  honest 
record  of  any  single  truth ;  none  of  the  plain  words  nor  straight 
efforts  that  men  speak  and  make  when  they  once  feel. 

NOT  is  it  only  by  the  professed  landscape  painters  that  the 
great  verities  of  the  material  world  are  betrayed :  Grand  as 
are  the  motives  of  landscape  in  the  works  of  the  earlier  and 
mightier  men,  there  is  yet  in  them  nothing  approaching  to  a 
general  view  nor  complete  rendering  of  natural  phenomena ; 
not  that  they  are  to  be  blamed  for  this;  for  they  took  out  of 
nature  that  which  was  fit  for  their  purpose,  and  their  mis-i.  n 
\?a&  to  do  no  more ;  but  we  must  be  cautious  to  distinguish 
that  imaginative  abstraction  of  landscape  which  alone  we-  li;ul 
in  them,  from  the  entire  statement  of  truth  which  has  been 
attempted  by  the  moderns.  I  have  said  in  the  chapter  on 


IDEAS    OF    RELATION.  261 

symmetry  in  the  second  volume,  that  all  landscape  grandem 
\  anishes  before  that  of  Titian  und  Tintoret ;  and  this  is  true 
of  whatever  these  two  giants  touched; — but  they  touched 
little.  A  few  level  flakes  of  chestnut  foliage ;  a  blue  abstrac- 
tion of  hill  forms  from  Cadore  or  the  Euganeans;  a  grand 
mass  or  two  of  glowing  ground  and  mighty  herbage,  and  a 
lew  burning  fields  of  quiet  cloud  were  all  they  needed ;  there 
is  evidence  of  Tintoret's  having  felt  more  than  this,  but  it 
occurs  only  in  secondary  fragments  of  rock,  cloud,  or  pine, 
hardly  noticed  among  the  accumulated  interest  of  his  human 
subject.  From  the  window  of  Titian's  house  at  Venice,  the 
chain  of  the  Tyrolese  Alps  is  seen  lifted  in  spectral  power 
above  the  tufted  plain  of  Treviso ;  every  dawn  that  reddens 
the  towers  of  Murano  lights  also  a  line  of  pyramidal  fires  along 
that  colossal  ridge ;  but  there  is,  so  fai  as  I  know,  no  evidence 
in  any  of  the  master's  works  of  his  ever  having  beheld,  much 
less  felt,  the  majesty  of  their  burning.  The  dark  firmament 
and  saddened  twilight  of  Tintoret  are  sufiicient  for  their  end; 
but  the  sun  never  plunges  behind  San  Giorgio  in  Aliga  with- 
out such  retinue  of  radiant  cloud,  such  rest  of  zoned  light  on 
the  green  lagoon,  as  never  received  image  from  his  hand. 

The  modern  Italians  will  paint  every  leaf  of  a  laurel  or  rose- 
bush without  the  slightest  feeling  of  their  beauty  or  character ; 
and  without  showing  one  spark  of  intellect  or  afiection  from 
beginning  to  end.  Anything  is  better  than  this;  and  yet  the 
very  highest  schools  do  the  same  thing,  or  nearly  so,  but  with 
totally  different  motives  and  perceptions,  and  the  result  ia 
divine.  On  the  whole,  I  conceive  that  the  extremes  of  good 
and  evil  lie  with  the  finishers,  and  that  whatever  glorioua 
power  we  may  admit  in  men  like  Tintoret,  whatever  attrac- 
tiveness of  method  to  Rubens,  Rembrandt,  or,  though  in  fat 
less  degree,  our  owr.  Reynolds,  still  the  thoroughly  great  men 


262  PAINTING. 

are  those  who  have  done  everything  thoroughly,  and  who,  in 
a  word,  have  never  despised  any  thing,  however  small,  of  < .l<>tl's 
making.  And  this  is  the  chief  fault  of  our  English  laudseapists, 
that  they  have  not  the  intense  all-observing  penetration  of 
well-balanced  mind;  they  have  not,  except  in  one  or  t\vo 
instances,  anything  of  that  feeling  which  "Wordsworth  shows 
in.  the  following  lines : — 

"  So  fair,  so  sweet,  withal  so  sensitive ; — 
Would  that  the  little  flowers  were  born  to  live 
Conscious  of  half  the  pleasure  which  they  give. 
That  to  this  mountain  daisy's  self  were  known 
Tiie  beauty  of  its  star-shaped  shadow,  thrown 
On  ihe,  smooth  surface  of  this  -naked  stone" 

That  is  a  little  bit  of  good,  downright,  foreground  paint- 
ing— no  mistake  about  it;  daisy,  and  shadow,  and  stone 
texture  and  all.  Our  painters  must  come  to  this  before  they 
have  done  their  duty ;  and  yet,  on  the  other  hand,  let  them 
beware  of  finishing,  for  the  sake  of  finish,  all  over  their  picture. 
The  ground  is  not  to  be  all  over  daisies,  nor  is  every  daisy  to 
have  its  star-shaped  shadow ;  there  is  as  much  finish  in  the  right 
concealment  of  things  as  in  the  right  exhibition  of  them  ;  and 
while  I  demand  this  amount  of  specific  character  where  nature 
shows  it,  I  demand  equal  fidelity  to  her  where  she  conceals  it. 

But  the  painter  who  really  loves  nature  will  not,  on  this 
account,  give  you  a  faded  and  feeble  image,  which  indeed  may 
uppear  to  you  to  be  right,  because  your  feelings  can  detect 
no  discrepancy  in  its  parts,  but  which  he  knows  to  derive  its 
apparent  truth  from  a  systematized  falsehood.  No ;  he  will 
make  you  understand  and  feel  that  art  cannot  imitate  nature 
— that  where  it  appears  to  do  so,  it  must  malign  her,  and 
mock  her.  He  will  give  you,  or  state  to  you,  such  truths  as 
are  in  his  power,  completely  and  perfectly;  and  those  which 


IDEAS    OP    RELATION.  263 

he  cannot  give,  he  will  leave  to  your  imagination.  If  you  are 
ao  jnainted  with  nature,  you  will  know  all  he  has  given  to  be 
true,  and  you  will  supply  from  your  memory  and  from  your 
heart  that  light  which  he  cannot  give.  If  you  are  unac- 
quainted with  nature,  seek  elsewhere  for  whatever  may  hap 
jjen  to  satisfy  your  feelings;  but  do  not  ask  for  the  trutt 
which  you  would  not  acknowledge  and  could  not  enjoy. 

And  must  it  ever  be  otherwise  with  painting,  for  otherwise 
it  has  ever  been.  Her  subjects  have  been  regarded  as  mere 
themes  on  which  the  artist's  power  is  to  be  displayed;  and 
that  power,  be  it  of  imitation,  composition,  idealization,  or  of 
whatever  other  kind,  is  the  chief  object  of  the  spectator's 
observation.  It  is  man  and  his  fancies,  man  and  his  trickeries, 
man  and  his  inventions, — poor,  paltry,  weak,  self-sighted  man, 
which  the  connoisseur  for  ever  seeks  and  worships.  Among 
potsherds  and  dunghills,  among  drunken  boors  and  withered 
beldames,  through  every  scene  of  debauchery  and  degradation, 
we  follow  the  erring  artist,  not  to  receive  one  wholesome  les- 
son, not  to  be  touched  with  pity,  nor  moved  with  indignation, 
but  to  watch  the  dexterity  of  the  pencil,  and  gloat  over  the 
glittering  of  the  hue.  -J 

I  speak  not  only  of  the  works  of  the  Flemish  School — I  wage 
no  war  with  their  admirers ;  they  may  be  left  in  peace  to 
count  the  spicuhe  of  haystacks  and  the  hairs  of  donkeys — it  is 
also  of  works  of  real  mind  that  I  speak, — works  in  which  there 
are  evidences  of  genius  and  workings  of  power, — works  which 
have  been  held  up  as  containing  all  of  the  beautiful  that  art 
can  reach  or  man  conceive.  And  I  assert  with  sorrow,  that 
all  hitherto  done  in  landscape,  by  those  commonly  conceived 
its  masters,  has  never  prompted  one  holy  thought  in  the  minds 
of  nations.  It  has  begun  and  ended  in  exhibiting  the  dexteri- 
ties of  individuals,  and  conventionalities  of  systems.  Filling 


2G4  PAINTING. 

the  world  with  the  honor  of  Claude  and  Salvator,  it  has  never 
once  tended  to  the  honor  of  God. 

Does  the  reader  start  in  reading  these  last  words,  as  if  they 
were  those  of  wild  enthusiasm, — as  if  I  were  lowering  the  dig- 
nity of  religion  by  supposing  that  its  cause  could  be  advanced 
by  such  means?  His  surprise  proves  my  position.  It  does 
sound  like  wild,  like  absurd  enthusiasm,  to  expect  any  definite 
moral  agency  in  the  painters  of  landscape ;  but  ought  it  so  to 
sound  ?  Are  the  gorgeousness  of  the  visible  hue,  the  glory  of 
the  realized  form,  instruments  in  the  artist's  hand  so  ineffective, 
that  they  can  answer  no  nobler  purpose  than  the  amusement 
of  curiosity,  or  the  engagement  of  idleness?  Must  it  not  be 
owing  to  gross  neglect  or  misapplication  of  the  means  at  his 
command,  that  while  words  and  tones  (means  of  representing 
nature  surely  less  powerful  than  lines  and  colors)  can  kindle  ar.d 
purify  the  very  inmost  souls  of  men,  the  painter  can  only  hope 
to  entertain  by  his  efforts  at  expression,  and  must  remain  for 
ever  brooding  over  his  incommunicable  thoughts  ? 

The  cause  of  the  evil  lies,  I  believe,  deep-seated  in  the  sys- 
tem of  ancient  landscape  art ;  it  consists,  in  a  word,  in  the 
painter's  taking  upon  him  to  modify  God's  works  at  his  plea- 
lure,  casting  the  shadow  of  himself  on  all  he  sees,  constituting 
himself  arbiter  where  it  is  honor  to  be  a  disciple,  and  exhibit- 
ing his  ingenuity  by  the  attainment  of  combinations  whoso 
highest  praise  is  that  they  are  impossible. 

Every  herb  and  flower  of  the  field  has  its  specific,  distinct, 
and  perfect  beauty ;  it  has  its  peculiar  habitation,  expression, 
and  function.  The  highest  art  is  that  which  seizes  this  specific 
character,  which  developes  and  illustrates  it,  which  assigns  to 
it  its  proper  position  in  the  landscape,  and  which,  by  means 
of  it,  enhances  and  enforces  the  great  impression  which  the 
picture  is  intended  to  convey. 

Again,  it  does  not  follow  that  because  such  accurate  know- 


CHIAROSCURO.  205 

ledge  is  necessary  to  tlie  painter  that  it  should  constitute  the 
painter;  nor  that  such  knowledge  is  valuable  in  itself,  and 
without  reference  to  high  ends.  Every  kind  of  knowledge 
may  be  sought  from  ignoble  motives,  and  for  ignoble  ends 
and  in  those  who  so  possess  it,  it  is  ignoble  knowledge ;  while  tho 
very  same  knowledge  is  in  another  mind  an  attainment  of  the 
highest  dignity,  and  conveying  the  greatest  blessing.  This  is 
the  difference  between  the  mere  botanist's  knowledge  of  plants, 
and  the  great  poet's  or  painter's  knowledge  of  them.  The 
one  notes  their  distinctions  for  the  sake  of  swelling  his  herba- 
rium ;  the  other,  that  he  may  render  them  vehicles  of  expres- 
sion and  emotion. 


CHIAROSCURO. 

Go  out  some  bright  sunny  day  in  winter,  and  look  for  a 
tree  with  a  broad  trunk,  having  rather  delicate  boughs  hang- 
ing down  on  the  sunny  side,  near  the  trunk.  Stand  four  or 
five  yards  from  it,  with  your  back  to  the  sun.  You  will  find 
that  the  boughs  between  you  and  the  trunk  of  the  tree  are 
very  indistinct,  that  you  confound  them  in  places  with  the 
trunk  itself,  and  cannot  possibly  trace  one  of  them  from  its 
insertion  to  its  extremity.  But  the  shadows  which  they  cast 
upon  the  trunk,  you  will  find  clear,  dark,  and  distinct,  per- 
fectly traceable  through  their  whole  course,  except  when  they 
are  interrupted  by  the  crossing  boughs.  And  if  you  retire 
backwards,  you  will  come  to  a  point  where  you  cannot  see  the 
intervening  boughs  at  all,  or  only  a  fragment  of  them  here 
and  there,  but  can  still  see  their  shadows  perfectly  plain. 
Now,  this  may  serve  to  show  you  the  immense  prominence 
and  importance  of  shadows  where  there  is  anything  like  bright 
light.  They  are,  in  fact,  commonly  far  mo.'e  conspicuous  than 

12 


266  PATNTING. 

the  tiling  which  casts  them,  for  being  as  large  as  the  casting 
object,  and  altogether  made  up  of  a  blackness  deeper  than  the 
darkest  part  of  the  casting  object,  (while  that  object  is  also 
broken  up  with  positive  and  reflected  lights,)  their  large, 
broad,  unbroken  spaces,  tell  strongly  on  the  eye,  especially  as 
all  form  is  rendered  partially,  often  totally  invisible  within 
them,  and  as  they  are  suddenly  terminated  by  the  sharpest 
lines  which  nature  ever  shows.  For  no  outline  of  objects 
whatsoever  is  so  sharp  as  the  edge  of  a  close  shadow.  Put 
your  finger  over  a  piece  of  white  paper  in  the  sun,  and 
observe  the  difference  between  the  softness  of  the  outline  of 
the  finger  itself  and  the  decision  of  the  edge  of  the  shadow. 
And  note  also  the  excessive  gloom  of  the  latter.  A  piece  of 
black  cloth,  laid  in  the  light,  will  not  attain  one-fourth  of  the 
blackness  of  the  paper  under  the  shadow. 

Hence  shadows  are  in  reality,  when  the  sun  is  shining,  the 
most  conspicuous  thing  in  a  landscape,  next  to  the  highest 
lights.  All  forms  are  understood  and  explained  chiefly  by 
their  agency:  the  roughness  of  the  bark  of  a  tree,  for  instance, 
is  not  seen  in  the  light,  nor  in  the  shade;  it  is  only  seen 
between  the  two,  where  the  shadows  of  the  ridges  explain  it. 
And  hence,  if  we  have  to  express  vivid  light,  our  very  first 
aim  must  be  to  get  the  shadows  sharp  and  visible. 

The  second  point  to  which  I  wish  at  present  to  direct 
attention  has  reference  to  the  arrangement  of  light  and  shade. 
It  is  the  constant  habit  of  nature  to  use  both  her  highest 
lights  and  deepest  shadows  in  exceedingly  small  quantity ; 
always  in  points,  never  in  masses.  She  will  give  a  large  mass 
of  tender  light  in  sky  or  water,  impressive  by  its  quantity, 
and  a  large  mass  of  tender  shadow  relieved  against  it,  in 
foliage,  or  hill,  or  building ;  but  the  h'ght  is  always  subdued 
if  it  be  extensive — the  shadow  always  feeble  if  it  be  broad. 
She  will  then  fill  up  all  the  rest  of  her  picture  with  middle 


CHIAROSCURO.  26*7 

tints  and  pale  grays  of  some  sort  or  another,  and  on  this  quiet 
and  harmonious  whole,  she  will  touch  her  high  lights  in  spots 
• — the  foam  of  an  isolated  wave — the  sail  of  a  solitary  vessel 
— the  flash  of  the  sun  from  a  wet  roof — the  gleam  of  a  single 
white-washed  cottage — or  some  such  sources  of  local  bril 
liancy,  she  will  use  so  vividly  and  delicately  as  to  throw  every- 
thing else  into  definite  shade  by  comparison.  And.  then 
taking  up  the  gloom,  she  will  use  the  black  hollows  of  some 
overhanging  bank,  or  the  black  dress  of  some  shaded  figure, 
01  the  depth  of  some  sunless  chink  of  wall  or  window,  so 
sharply  as  to  throw  everything  else  into  definite  light  by  com- 
parison ;  thus  reducing  the  whole  mass  of  her  picture  to  a 
delicate  middle  tint,  approaching,  of  course,  here  to  light,  and 
there  to  gloom ;  but  yet  sharply  separated  from  the  utmost 
degrees  either  of  the  one  or  the  other.  None  are  in  the  right 
road  to  real  excellence,  but  those  who  are  struggling  to 
render  the  simplicity,  purity,  and  inexhaustible  variety  of 
nature's  own  chiaroscuro  in  open,  cloudless  daylight,  giving 
the  expanse  of  harmonious  light — the  speaking,  decisive 
shadow — and  the  exquisite  grace,  tenderness,  and  grandeur 
of  aerial  opposition  of  local  color  and  equally  illuminated 
lines.  No  chiaroscuro  is  so  difficult  as  this ;  and  none  so 
noble,  chaste,  or  impressive.  On  this  part  of  the  subject,  how- 
ever, I  must  not  enlarge  at  present.  I  wish  now  only  to  speak 
of  those  great  principles  of  chiaroscuro,  which  nature  observes, 
even  when  she  is  most  working  for  effect — when  she  is  play- 
ing with  thunderclouds  and  sunbeams,  and  throwing  one 
thing  out  and  obscuring  another,  with  the  most  marked  artis- 
tical  feeling  and  intention ; — even  then,  she  never  forgets  her 
great  rule,  to  give  precisely  the  same  quantity  of  deepest 
shade  which  she  does  of  highest  light,  and  no  more ;  points 
of  the  one  answering  to  points  of  the  other,  and  both  vividly 
conspicuous  and  separated  from  all  the  rest  of  the  landscape. 


208 


TINTORET'S  MASSACBB  OF  THE  INNOCENTS. 


Of  Raffaelle's  treatment  of  the  massacre  of  the  innocents, 
Fuseli  affirms  that,  "hi  dramatic  gradation  he  disclosed  all  the 
mother  through  every  image  of  pity  and  of  terror."  If  this  be 
so,  I  think  the  philosophical  spirit  has  prevailed  over  the 
imaginative.  The  imagination  never  errs,  it  sees  all  that  is 
and  alj  the  relations  and  bearings  of  it,  but  it  would  not  have 
confused  the  mortal  frenzy  of  maternal  terror  with  various 
development  of  maternal  character.  Fear,  rage,  and  agony,  at 
their  utmost  pitch,  sweep  away  all  character  :  humanity  itself 
would  be  lost  in  maternity,  the  woman  would  become  the  mere 
personification  of  animal  fury  or  fear.  For  this  reason  all  the 
ordinary  representations  of  this  subject  are,  I  think,  false  and 
cold  :  the  artist  has  not  heard  the  shrieks,  nor  mingled  with 
the  fugitives,  he  has  sat  down  in  his  study  to  twist  features 
methodically,  and  philosophize  over  insanity.  Xot  so  Tintoret. 
Knowing  or  feeling,  that  the  expression  of  the  human  face  was 
in  such  circumstances  not  to  be  rendered,  and  that  the  effort 
could  only  end  in  an  ugly  falsehood,  he  denies  himself  all  aid 
from  the  features,  he  feels  that  if  lie  is  to  place  himself  or  us  in 
the  midst  of  that  maddened  multitude,  there  can  be  no  time 
allowed  for  watching  expression.  Still  less  does  he  depend  on 
details  of  murder  or  ghastlines?  of  death  ;  there  is  no  blood, 
no  stabbing  or  cutting,  but  there  is  an  awful  substitute  for 
these  in  the  chiaroscuro.  The  scene  is  the  outer  vestibule  of  a 
palace,  the  slippery  marble  floor  is  fearfully  barred  across  by 
sanguine  shadows,  so  that  our  eyes  seem  to  become  bloodshot 
and  strained  with  strange  horror  and  deadly  vision  ;  a  lake  of 
life  before  them,  like  the  burning  seen  of  the  doomed  Moabite 
on  the  water  that  came  by  the  way  of  Edom;  a  huge  flight  of 
stairs,  without  parapet,  descends  on  the  left;  down  this  rush  a 


TENTOKET'S   MASSACRE   OF   THE   IXXOCESTS.  269 

crowd  of  women  mixed  with  the  murderers ;  the  child  in  the 
arms  of  one  has  been  seized  by  the  limbs,  she  hurls  herself  over 
the  edge,  and  falls  head  downmost,  dragging  the  child  out  of 
the  grasp  by  her  weight ; — she  will  be  dashed  dead  in  a  second: 
two  others  are  farther  in  flight,  they  reach  the  edge  of  a  deep* 
river, — the  water  is  beat  into  a  hollow  by  the  force  of  their 
plunge  ; — close  to  us  is  the  great  struggle,  a  heap  of  the  mothers 
entangled  in  one  mortal  writhe  with  each  other  and  the  swords, 
one  of  the  murderers  dashed  down  and  crushed  beneath  them, 
the  sword  of  another  caught  by  the  blade  and  dragged  at  by  a 
woman's  nuked  hand;  the  youngest  and  fairest  of  the  women, 
her  child  just  torn  away  from  a  death  grasp  and  clasped  to  her 
breast  with  the  grip  of  a  steel  vice,  falls  backwards  helplessly 
over  the  heap,  right  on  the  sword  points ;  all  knit  togethei 
and  hurled  down  in  one  hopeless,  frenzied,  furious  abandonment 
of  body  and  soul  in  the  effort  to  save.  Their  shrieks  ring  in  our 
ears  till  the  marble  seems  rending  around  us,  but  far  back  al 
the  bottom  of  the  stairs,  there  is  something  in  the  shadow  like 
a  heap  of  clothes.  It  is  a  woman,  sitting  quiet, — quite  quiet — • 
still  as  any  stone,  she  looks  down  steadfastly  on  her  dead  child, 
laid  along  on  the  floor  before  her,  and  her  hand  is  pressed 
softly  upon  her  brow. 

All  the  parts  of  a  noble  work  must  be  separately  imperfect, 
each  must  imply,  and  ask  for  all  the  rest,  and  the  glory  of 
every  one  of  them  must  consist  in  its  relation  to  the  rest,  neithei 
while  so  much  as  one  is  wanting  can  any  be  right.  And  it  is 
evidently  impossible  to  conceive  in  each  separate  feature,  a 
certain  want  or  wrongness  which  can  only  be  corrected  by  the 
other  features  of  the  picture,  (not  by  one  or  two  merely,  but 
by  all,)  unless  together  with  the  want,  we  conceive  also  of 
what  is  wanted,  that  is  of  all  the  rest  of  the  work  or  picture 
Hence  Fuseli: — 


270  PAINTING!. 

"Second  thoughts  are  admissible  in  painting  and  poetry 
only  as  dressers  of  the  first  conception ;  no  great  idea  was  ever 
formed  in  fragments." 


THE  BAPTISM  CF  CHRIST. 

Tintoret  has  thrown  into  it  his  utmost  strength,  and  it 
becomes  noble  in  his  hands  by  his  most  singularly  imaginative 
expression,  not  only  of  the  immediate  fact,  but  of  the  whole 
train  of  thought  of  which  it  is  suggestive ;  and  by  his  con- 
sidering the  baptism  not  only  as  the  submission  of  Christ  to  the 
fulfilment  of  all  righteousness,  but  as  the  opening  of  the  earthly 
struggle  with  the  prince  of  the  powers  of  the  air,  which  instantl) 
beginning  hi  the  temptation,  ended  only  on  the  cross. 

The  river  flows  fiercely  under  the  shadow  of  a  great  rock. 
From  its  opposite  shore,  thickets  of  close,  gloomy  foliage  rise 
against  the  rolling  chasm  of  heaven,  through  which  breaks  the 
brightness  of  the  descending  Spirit.  Across  these,  dividing 
them  asunder,  is  stretched  a  horizontal  floor  of  flaky  cloud,  on 
which  stand  the  hosts  of  heaven.  Christ  kneels  upon  the 
water,  and  does  not  sink ;  the  figure  of  St.  John  is  indistinct, 
but  close  beside  his  raised  right  arm  there  is  a  spectre  in  the 
black  shade ;  the  fiend,  harpy-shaped,  hardly  seen,  glares  down 
upon  Christ  with  eyes  of  fire,  waiting  his  time.  Beneath  this 
figure  there  comes  out  of  the  mist  a  dark  hand,  the  arm  unseen, 
extended  to  a  net  in  the  river,  the  spars  of  which  are  in  the 
shape  of  a  cross.  Behind  this  the  roots  and  under  stems  of  the 
trees  are  cut  away  by  the  cloud,  and  beneath  it,  and  through 
them,  is  seen  a  vision  of  wild,  melancholy,  boundless  light,  the 
sweep  of  the  desert,  and  the  figure  of  Christ  is  seen  therein 
alone,  with  his  arms  lifted  as  in  supplication  or  ocstacy,  borne 
of  the  Spirit  into  the  wilderness  to  be  tempted  of  the  devil. 


THE   IDEAL    OF    HU1IANITY.  27 1 


THE  IDEAL  OF  HUMANITY. 

The  right  ideal  is  to  be  reached,  we  have  asserted,  only  b^ 
the  banishment  of  the  immediate  signs  of  sin  upon  the  couu  • 
tenance  and  body.  How,  therefore,  are  the  signs  of  sin  to  be 
known  and  separated  ? 

Ko  intellectual  operation  is  here  of  any  avail.  There  is  not 
any  reasoning  by  which  the  evidences  of  depravity  are  to  be 
traced  in  movements  of  muscle  or  forms  of  feature ;  there  is  not 
any  knowledge,  nor  experience,  nor  diligence  of  comparison 
that  can  be  of  avail.  Here,  as  throughout  the  operation  of  the 
theoretic  faculty,  the  perception  is  altogether  moral,  an  instinc- 
tive love  and  clinging  to  the  lines  of  light.  Nothing  but  love 
can  read  the  letters,  nothing  but  sympathy  catch  the  sound, 
there  is  no  pure  passion  that  can  be  understood  or  painted 
except  by  pureness  of  heart ;  the  foul  or  blunt  feeling  will  see 
itself  in  everything,  and  set  down  blasphemies. 

God  has  employed  certain  colors  in  His  creation  as  the 
unvarying  accompaniment  of  all  that  is  purest,  most  innocent, 
and  most  precious ;  while  for  things  precious  only  in  material 
uses,  or  dangerous,  common  colors  are  reserved.  Consider 
for  a  little  while  what  sort  of  a  world  it  would  be  if  all  flowers 
were  grey,  all  leaves  black,  and  the  sky  brown.  Observe  how 
constantly  innocent  things  are  bright  in  color ;  look  at  a  dove's 
neck,  and  compare  it  with  the  grey  back  of  a  viper ;  I  have 
often  heard  talk  of  brilliantly  colored  serpents;  and  I  suppose 
there  are  such, — as  there  are  gay  poisons,  like  the  foxglove  and 
kalmia — types  of  deceit :  but  all  the  venomous  serpents  I  have 
really  seen  are  grey,  brick-red,  or  brown,  variously  mottled ; 
and  the  most  awful  serpent  I  have  seen,  the  Egyptian  asp,  ia 
precisely  of  the  color  of  gravel,  or  only  a  little  greyer.  So, 


272  PAINTING. 

again,  the  crocodile  and  alligator  are  grey,  out  the  innocent 
lizard  green  and  beautiful.  I  do  not  mean  that  the  rule  is 
invariable,  otherwise  it  would  be  more  convincing  than  tho 
lessons  of  the  natural  universe  are  intended  ever  to  be;  there 
are  beautiful  colors  on  the  leopard  and  tiger,  and  in  the  ber- 
ries of  the  nightshade ;  and  there  is  nothing  very  notable  in 
brilliancy  of  color  either  in  sheep  or  cattle  (though,  by  the 
way,  the  velvet  of  a  brown  bull's  hide  in  the  sun,  or  the  tawny 
white  of  the  Italian  oxen,  is,  to  my  mind,  lovelier  than  any 
leopard's  or  tiger's  skin)  :  'but  take  a  wider  view  of  nature, 
and  compare  generally  rainbows,  sunrises,  roses,  violets,  but- 
terflies, birds,  gold-fish,  rubies,  opals,  and  corals,  with  alliga- 
tors, hippopotami,  lions,  wolves,  bears,  swine,  sharks,  slugs, 
bones,  fungi,  fogs,  and  corrupting,  stinging,  destroying  things 
in  general,  and  you  will  feel  then  how  the  question  stand* 
between  the  colorists  and  chiaroscurists, — which  of  them  1m  e 
nature  and  life  on  their  side,  and  which  have  sin  and  death. 

We  have  been  speaking  hitherto  of  what  is  constant  and 
necessary  in  nature,  of  the  ordinary  effects  of  daylight  on 
ordinary  colors,  and  we  repeat  again,  that  no  gorgeousness  of 
the  pallet  can  reach  even  these.  But  it  is  a  widely  different 
thing  when  nature  herself  takes  a  coloring  fit,  and  does  some- 
thing extraordinary,  something  really  to  exhibit  her  power. 
She  has  a  thousand  ways  and  means  of  rising  above  herself, 
but  incomparably  the  noblest  manifestations  of  her  capability 
of  color  are  in  the  sunsets  among  the  high  clouds.  I  speak 
especially  of  the  moment  before  the  sun  sinks,  when  his  light 
turns  pure  rose-color,  and  when  this  light  falls  upon  a  zenith 
covered  with  countless  cloudforms  of  inconceivable  delicacy, 
threads  and  flakes  of  vapor,  which  would  in  common  daylight 
be  pure  snow  white,  and  which  give  therefore  fair  field  to  the 
tone  of  light.  There  is  then  no  limit  to  the  multitude,  and  no 


THE   IDEAL    OF    HUMANITY.  273 

check  to  the  intensity  of  the  hues  assumed.  The  whole  sky 
from  the  zenith  to  the  horizon  becomes  one  molten,  mantling 
t»ea  of  color  and  fire ;  every  black  bar  turns  into  massy  gold, 
every  ripple  and  wave  into  unsullied,  shadowless  crimson,  and 
purple,  and  scarlet,  and  colors  for  which  there  are  no  words 
in  language,  and  no  ideas  in  the  mind, — things  which  can  only 
be  conceived  while  they  are  visible, — the  intense  hollow  blue 
of  the  upper  sky  melting  through  it  all, — showing  here  deep, 
and  pure,  and  lightless,  there,  modulated  by  the  filmy,  form 
less  body  of  the  transparent  vapor,  till  it  is  lost  imperceptibly 
in  its  crimson  and  gold. 

The  concurrence  of  circumstances  necessary  to  produce  the 
sunsets  of  which  I  speak  does  not  take  place  above  five  or  six 
times  in  a  summer,  and  then  only  for  a  space  of  from  five  to 
ten  minutes,  just  as  the  sun  reaches  the  horizon.  Considering 
how  seldom  people  think  of  looking  for  sunset  at  all,  and  how 
seldom,  if  they  do,  they  are  in  a  position  from  Avhich  it  can  be 
fully  seen,  the  chances  that  their  attention  should  be  awake> 
and  their  position  favorable,  during  these  few  flying  instants 
of  the  year,  is  almost  as  nothing.  What  can  the  citizen,  who 
can  see  only  the  red  light  on  the  canvas  of  the  wagon  at  the 
end  of  the  street,  and  the  crimson  color  of  the  bricks  of  hi? 
neighbor's  chimney,  know  of  the  flood  of  fire  which  deluges 
the  sky  from  the  horizon  to  the  zenith  ?  What  can  even  the 
quiet  inhabitant  of  the  English  lowlands,  whose  scene  for  the 
manifestation  of  the  fire  of  heaven  is  limited  to  the  tops  of 
hayricks,  and  the  rooks'  nests  in  the  old  elm-trees,  know  of 
the  mighty  passages  of  splendor  which  are  tossed  from  Alp  to 
Alp  over  the  azure  of  a  thousand  miles  of  champaign  ?  Even 
granting  fehe  constant  vigor  of  observation,  and  supposing  the 
possession  of  such  impossible  knowledge,  it  needs  but  a 
moment's  reflection  to  prove  how  incapable  the  memory  is  of 
retaining  for  any  time  the  distinct  image  of  the  sources  even 

12* 


274  PAINTING. 

of  its  most  vivid  impressions.  What  recollection  have  we  of 
the  sunsets  which  delighted  us  last  year?  "We  may  know 
that  they  were  magnificent,  or  glowing,  but  no  distinct  image 
of  color  or  form  is  retained — nothing  of  whose  degree  (for  the 
great  difficulty  with  the  memory  is  to  retain,  not  facts,  but 
degrees  of  fact)  we  could  be  so  certain  as  to  say  of  anything 
now  presented  to  us,  that  it  is  like  it.  If  we  did  say  so,  we 
should  be  wrong ;  for  we  may  be  quite  certain  that  the  energy 
of  an  impression  fades  from  the  memory,  and  becomes  more 
and  more  indistinct  every  day ;  and  thus  we  compare  a  faded 
and  indistinct  image  with  the  decision  and  certainty  of  one 
present  to  the  senses. 

Recognition  is  no  proof  of  real  and  intrinsic  resemblance. 
We  recognise  our  books  by  their  bindings,  though  the  true 
and  essential  characteristics  lie  inside.  A  man  is  known  to 
his  dog  by  the  smell — to  his  tailor  by  the  coat — to  his  friend 
by  the  smile :  each  of  these  knows  him,  but  how  little,  or  how 
much,  depends  on  the  dignity  of  the  intelligence.  That  which 
is  truly  and  indeed  characteristic  of  the  man,  is  known  only 
to  God. 

One  portrait  of  a  man  may  possess  exact  accuracy  of  fea 
ture,  and  no  atom  of  expression ;  it  may  be,  to  use  the  ordi- 
nary terms  of  admiration  bestowed  on  such  portraits  by  those 
whom  they  please,  "  as  like  as  it  can  stare."  Everybody, 
down  to  his  cat,  would  know  this.  Another  portrait  may 
have  neglected  or  misrepresented  the  features,  but  may  have 
given  the  flash  of  the  eye,  and  the  peculiar  radiance  of  the  lip, 
seen  on  him  only  in  his  hours  of  highest  mental  excitement. 
None  but  his  friends  would  know  this.  Another  may  have 
given  none  of  his  ordinary  expressions,  but  one  which  he  wore 
in  the  most  excited  instant  of  his  life,  when  all  his  secret  pas- 
sions and  all  his  highest  powers  were  brought  into  play  at 


THE    IDEAL    OF    HUMANITY.  27S 

once.  None  but  those  who  had  then  seen  him  might  recog 
nise  this  as  like.  But  which  would  be  the  most  truthful  por- 
trait of  the  man?  The  first  gives  the  accidents  of  body,  the 
sport  of  cliniute,  and  food,  and  time — which  corruption  inha- 
bits, and  the  worm  waits  for.  The  second  gives  the  stamp 
of  the  soul  on  the  flesh;  but  it  is  the  soul  seen  in  the 
emotions  which  it  shares  with  many — which  may  not  be  cha- 
racteristic of  its  essence — the  results  of  habit,  and  education, 
and  accident;  a  gloze,  whether  purposely  worn,  or  uncon- 
sciously assumed,  perhaps  totally  contrary  to  all  that  is  rooted 
and  real  in  the  mind  that  it  conceals.  The  third  has  caught 
the  trace  of  all  that  was  most  hidden  and  most  mighty,  when 
all  hypocrisy,  and  all  habit,  and  all  petty  and  passing  emotion 
— the  ice,  and  the  bank  and  the  foam  of  the  immortal  river — 
were  shivered  and  broken,  and  swallowed  up  in  the  awaken- 
ing of  its  inward  strength ;  when  the  call  and  claim  of  some 
divine  motive  had  brought  into  visible  being  those  latent 
forces  and  feelings  which  the  spirit's  own  volition  could  not 
summon,  nor  its  consciousness  comprehend ;  which  God  only 
knew,  and  God  only  could  awaken, — the  depth  and  the  mys- 
tery  of  its  peculiar  and  separating  attributes. 

In  a  man,  to  be  short-legged  or  long-nosed,  or  anything  else 
of  accidental  quality,  does  not  distinguish  him  from  other 
short-legged  or  long-nosed  animals ;  but  the  important  truths 
respecting  a  man  are,  first,  the  marked  development  of  that 
distinctive  organization  which  separates  him  as  man  from 
other  animals,  and  secondly,  that  group  of  qualities  which 
distinguish  the  individual  from  all  other  men,  which  make 
him  Paul  or  Judas,  Newton  or  Shakspeare. 

That  habit  of  the  old  and  great  painters  of  introducing 
poi  trait  into  all  then  highest  works,  I  look  to,  not  as  error  in 


276  PAINTING. 

them,  but  as  the  very  source  and  root  of  their  superiority  in 
all  things,  for  they  were  too  great  and  too  humble  not  to  see 
in  every  face  about  them  that  which  was  above  them,  and 
which  no  fancies  of  theirs  could  match  nor  take  place  of; 
wherefore  we  find  the  custom  of  portraiture  constant  with 
them,  both  portraiture  of  study  and  for  purposes  of  analysis, 
as  with  Leonardo;  and  actual,  professed,  serviceable,  haid- 
working  portraiture  of  the  men  of  their  time,  as  with 
Raffaelle,  and  Titian,  and  Tintoret. 

There  is  not  any  greater  sign  of  the  utter  want  of  vitality 
and  hopefulness  in  the  schools  of  the  present  day  than  that 
unhappy  prettiness  and  sameness  under  which  they  mask,  or 
rather  for  which  they  barter,  in  their  lentile  thirst,  all  the 
birthright  and  power  of  nature,  which  prettiness,  wrought  out 
and  spun  fine  in  the  study,  out  of  empty  heads,  till  it  hardly 
betters  the  blocks  on  which  dresses  and  hair  are  tried  in 
barbers'  windows  and  milliners'  books,  cannot  but  be  revolt- 
ing to  any  man  who  has  his  eyes,  even  in  a  measure,  open  to 
the  divinity  of  the  immortal  seal  on  the  common  features  that 
he  meets  hi  the  highways  and  hedges  hourly  and  momentarily, 
outreaching  all  efforts  of  conception  as  all  power  of  realization, 
were  it  Raffaelle's  three  times  over,  even  when  the  gloiy  of 
the  wedding  garment  is  not  there. 

Public  taste,  I  believe,  as  far  as  it  is  the  encourager  and 
supporter  of  art,  has  been  the  same  in  all  ages, — a  fitful  and 
vacillating  current  of  vague  impression,  perpetually  liable  to 
change,  subject  to  epidemic  desires,  and  agitated  by  infectious 
passion,  the  slave  of  fashion,  and  the  fool  of  fancy,  but  yet 
ahvays  distinguishing  with  singular  clearsightedness,  between 
that  which  is  best  and  that  which  is  worst  of  the  particular  cln-o 
of  food  which  its  morbid  appetite  may  call  for ;  never  failing-  to 


THE    IDEAL    OF    HLTJAXITY.  277 

distinguish  that  which  is  produced  by  intellect,  from  that  which 
is  not,  though  it  may  be  intellect  degraded  by  ministering  to  it? 
misguided  will.  Public  taste  may  thus  degrade  a  race  of  men 
capable  of  the  highest  efforts  in  art  into  the  portrait  painter* 
of  ephemeral  fashions,  but  it  will  yet  not  fail  of  discovering  who 
among  these  portrait  painters  is  the  man  of  the  most  mind.  It 
will  separate  the  man  who  wrould  have  become  Buonaroti  from 
the  man  who  would  have  become  Bandinelli,  though  it  will 
employ  both  in  painting  curls,  and  feathers,  and  bracelets. 
Hence,  generally  speaking,  there  is  no  comparative  injustice 
done,  no  false  elevation  of  the  fool  above  the  man  of  mind, 
provided  only  that  the  man  of  mind  will  condescend  to  supply 
the  particular  article  which  the  public  chooses  to  want.  Of 
course  a  thousand  modifying  circumstances  interfere  with  the 
action  of  the  general  rule  ;  but,  taking  one  case  with  another, 
we  shall  very  constantly  find  the  price  wrhich  the  picture 
commands  in  the  market  a  pretty  fair  standard  of  the  artist's 
rank  of  intellect.  The  press,  therefore,  and  all  who  pretend  to 
lead  the  public  taste,  have  not  so  much  to  direct  the  multitude 
whom  to  go  to,  as  what  to  ask  for.  Their  business  is  not  to  tell 
us  which  is  our  best  painter,  but  to  tell  us  whether  we  are 
making  our  best  painter  do  his  best. 

Now  none  are  capable  of  doing  this,  but  those  whose 
principles  of  judgment  are  based  both  on  thorough  practical 
knowledge  of  art,  and  on  broad  general  views  of  what  is  true 
and  right,  without  reference  to  what  has  been  done  at  one  time 
or  another,  or  in  one  school  or  another.  Nothing  can  be  more 
perilous  to  the  cause  of  art,  than  the  constant  ringing  in  our 
pointers'  ears  of  the  names  of  great  predecessors,  as  their 
examples  or  masters. 

One  of  the  most  morbid  symptoms  of  the  general  taste  of 
the  present  day,  is  a  too  great  fondness  for  unfinished  works 
Brilliancy  and  rapidity  of  execution  are  everywhere  sought  as 


278  PAINTING. 

the  highest  good,  and  so  that  a  picture  be  cleverly  handled  as 
far  as  it  is  carried,  little  regard  is  paid  to  its  imperfection  as  a 
whole.  Hence  some  artists  are  permitted,  and  others  compelled, 
to  confine  themselves  to  a  manner  of  working  altogether 
destructive  of  their  powers,  and  to  tax  their  energies,  not  to 
concentrate  the  greatest  quantity  of  thought  on  the  least 
possible  space  of  canvas,  but  to  produce  the  greatest  quantity 
of  glitter  and  clap-trap  in  the  shortest  possible  time.  To  the 
idler  and  the  trickster  in  art,  no  system  can  be  more  advan- 
tageous ;  but  to  the  man  who  is  really  desirous  of  doing 
something  worth  having  lived  for — to  a  man  of  industry,  energy, 
"^  or  feeling,  we  believe  it  to  be  the  cause  of  the  most  bitter  dis- 
couragement. If  ever,  working  upon  a  favorite  subject  or  a 
beloved  idea,  he  is  induced  to  tax  his  powers  to  the  utmost,  and 
to  spend  as  much  time  upon  his  picture  as  he  feels  necessary 
for  its  perfection,  he  will  not  be  able  to  get  so  high  a  price  for 
the  result,  perhaps,  of  a  twelvemonth's  thought,  as  he  might 
have  obtained  for  half  a  dozen  sketches  with  a  forenoon's  work 
in  each,  and  he  is  compelled  either  to  fall  back  upon  mechanism, 
or  to  starve.  Now  the  press  should  especially  endeavor  to 
convince  the  public,  that  by  this  purchase  of  imperfect  pictures 
they  not  only  prevent  all  progress  and  development  of  high 
talent,  and  set  tricksters  and  mechanics  on  a  level  with  men  of 
mind,  but  defraud  and  injure  themselves. 

There  is  no  doubt  whatevei',  that,  estimated  merely  by  the 
quantity  cf  pleasure  it  is  capable  of  conveying,  a  well-finished 
picture  is  worth  to  its  possessor  half-a-dozen  incomplete  ones  ; 
and  that  a  perfect  drawing  is,  simply  as  a  source  of  deliglii, 
better  worth  a  hundred  guineas  than  a  drawing  half  as  finished 
is  worth  thirty.  On  the  other  hand,  the  body  of  our  artists 
should  be  kept  in  mind,  that  by  indulging  the  public  with 
rapid  and  unconsidered  work,  they  are  not  only  depriving 
themselves  of  the  benefit  which  each  picture  ought  to  render 


THE   IDEAL    OF    HUMANITY.  27S 

to  them,  as  a  piece  of  practice  and  study,  but  they  arc. 
destroying  the  refinement  of  general  taste,  and  rendering  it 
impossible  for  themselves  ever  to  find  a  market  for  more 
careful  works,  supposing  that  they  were  inclined  to  execute 
them.  Nor  need  any  single  artist  be  afraid  of  setting  the 
example,  and  producing  labored  works,  at  advanced  prices, 
among  the  cheap,  quick  drawings  of  the  day.  The  public 
will  soon  find  the  value  of  the  complete  work,  and  will  be 
more  ready  to  give  a  large  sum  for  that  which  is  inexhaustible, 
than  a  quota  of  it  for  that  which  they  are  weaned  of  in  a 
month.  The  artist  who  never  lets  the  price  command  the 
picture,  will  soon  find  the  picture  command  the  price.  And 
it  ought  to  be  a  rule  with  every  painter  never  to  let  a  picture 
leave  his  easel  while  it  is  yet  capable  of  improvement,  or  of 
having  more  thought  put  into  it.  The  general  effect  is  often 
perfect  and  pleasing,  and  not  to  be  improved  upon,  when  the 
details  and  facts  are  altogether  imperfect  and  unsatisfactory, 
It  may  be  difficult — perhaps  the  most  difficult  task  of  art — to 
complete  these  details,  and  not  to  hurt  the  general  effect ;  but 
until  the  aitist  can  do  this,  his  art  is  imperfect  and  his  picture 
unfinished.  That  only  is  a  complete  picture  which  has  both 
the  general  wholeness  and  effect  of  nature,  and  the  inexhaus- 
tible perfection  of  nature's  details.  And  it  is  only  in  the 
effort  to  unite  these  that  a  painter  really  improves.  By  aim- 
ing only  at  details,  he  becomes  a  mechanic ;  by  aiming  only 
at  generals,  he  becomes  a  trickster :  his  fall  in  both  cases  is 
sure.  Two  questions  the  artist  has,  therefore,  to  ask  himself, 
— first,  "  Is  my  whole  right  ?"  Secondly,  "  Can  my  details  be 
added  to  ?  Is  there  a  single  space  in  the  picture  where  I  can 
crowd  in  another  thought  ?  Is  there  a  curve  in  it  which  I  can 
modulate — a  line  which  I  can  graduate — a  vacancy  I  can  fill  ? 
Is  there  a  single  spot  which  the  eye,  by  any  peering  or  pry- 
ing,  can  fathom  or  exhaust  ?  If  so,  my  picture  is  imperfect, 


280 

and  if,  in  modxilating  the  line  or  filling  the  vacancy,  I  hurt  the 
general  effect,  my  art  is  imperfect." 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  though  incomplete  pictures  ought 
neither  to  be  produced  nor  purchased,  careful  and  real  sketc/ies 
ought  to  be  valued  much  more  highly  than  they  are. 

If  I  stand  by  a  picture  in  the  Academy,  and  hear  twenty 
persons  in  succession  admiring  some  paltry  piece  of  mechanism 
or  imitation  in  the  lining  of  a  cloak,  or  the  satin  of  a  slipper, 
it  is  absurd  to  tell  me  that  they  reprobate  collectively  what 
they  admire  individually :  or,  if  they  pass  with  apathy  by  a 
piece  of  the  most  noble  conception  or  most  perfect  truth,  be- 
cause it  has  in  it  no  tricks  of  the  brush  nor  grimace  of  expres- 
sion, it  is  absurd  to  tell  me  that  they  collectively  respect  what 
they  separately  scorn,  or  that  the  feelings  and  knowledge  of 
such  judges,  by  any  length  of  time  or  comparison  of  ideas, 
could  come  to  any  right  conclusion  with  respect  to  what  is 
really  high  in  art.  The  question  is  not  decided  by  them,  but 
for  them ; — decided  at  first  by  few :  by  fewer  in  proportion  as 
the  merits  of  the  work  are  of  a  higher  order.  From  these  few 
the  decision  is  communicated  to  the  number  next  below  them 
in  rank  of  mind,  and  by  these  again  to  a  wider  and  lower 
circle ;  each  rank  being  so  far  cognizant  of  the  superiority  of 
that  above  it,  as  to  receive  its  decision  with  respect ;  until,  in 
process  of  time,  the  right  and  consistent  opinion  is  communi- 
cated to  all,  and  held  by  all  as  a  matter  of  faith,  the  more 
positively  in  proportion  as  the  grounds  of  it  are  less  perceived." 

*  TLere  are,  however,  a  thousand  modifying  circumstances  which  render 
this  process  sometimes  unnecessary, — sometimes  rapid  and  certain — some- 
limes  impossible.  It  is  unnecessary  in  rhetoric  and  the  drama,  because  the 
multitude  is  the  only  proper  judge  of  those  arts  whose  end  is  to  move  the 
multitude,  (though  more  ia  necessary  to  a  fine  play  than  .s  essentially  dra- 
matic, and  it  is  only  of  the  dramatic  part  that  the  multitude  are  cognizant.) 


THE    IDEAL    OF    HUMANITY.  281 

But  when  this  process  has  taken  place,  and  the  work  has 
become  sanctified  by  time  in  the  minds  of  men,  it  is  impossible 

It  is  unnecessary,  when,  united  with  the  higher  qualities  of  a  work,  there  are 
appeals  to  universal  passion,  to  all  the  faculties  and  feelings  -which  are 
general  in  man  as  an  animal.  The  popularity  is  then  as  sudden  as  it  it 
well  grounded, — it  is  hearty  and  honest  in  every  mind,  but  it  is  based  in 
every  mind  on  a  different  species  of  excellence.  Such  will  often  be  the 
case  with  the  noblest  works  of  literature.  Take  Don  Quixote  for  ex- 
ample. The  lowest  mind  would  find  in  it  perpetual  and  brutal  amusement 
in  the  misfortunes  of  the  knight,  and  perpetual  pleasure  in  sympathy  with 
the  squire.  A  mind  of  average  feeling  would  perceive  the  satirical  meaning 
and  force  of  the  book,  would  appreciate  its  wit,  its  elegance,  and  its  truth. 
But  only  elevated  and  peculiar  minds  discover,  in  addition  to  all  this,  the 
mil  moral  beauty  of  the  love  and  truth  which  are  the  constant  associatea 
of  all  that  is  even  most  weak  and  erring  in  the  character  of  its  hero,  and 
pass  over  the  rude  adventure  and  scurrile  jest  in  haste — perhaps  in  pain,  to 
penetrate  beneath  the  rusty  corslet,  and  catch  from  the  wandering  glance, 
the  evidence  and  expression  of  fortitude,  self-devotion,  and  universal  love.  So 
again,  with  the  works  of  Scott  and  Byron ;  popularity  was  as  instant  as  it  was 
deserved,  because  there  is  in  them  an  appeal  to  those  passions  which  are. 
universal  in  all  men,  as  well  as  an  expression  of  such  thoughts  as  can  be 
received  only  by  the  few.  But  they  are  admired  by  the  majority  of  their 
advocates  for  the  weakest  parts  of  their  works,  as  a  popular  preacher  by  the 
majority  of  his  congregation  for  the  worst  part  of  his  sermon. 

The  process  is  rapid  and  certain,  when,  though  there  may  be  little  to  catcb 
the  multitude  at  once,  there  is  much  which  they  can  enjoy  when  their  atten- 
tion is  authoritatively  directed  to  it.  So  rests  the  reputation  of  Shakspeare. 
No  ordinary  mind  can  comprehend  wherein  his  undisputed  superiority  consists, 
but  there  is  yet  quite  as  much  to  amuse,  thrill,  or  excite, — quite  as  much  of 
what  is  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word,  dramatic,  in  his  works  as  in  any  one 
else's.  They  were  received,  therefore,  when  first  written,  with  average  ap- 
proval, as  works  of  common  merit :  but  when  the  high  decision  was  made, 
and  the  circle  spread,  the  public  took  up  the  hue  and  cry  conscientiously 
enough.  Let  them  have  daggers,  ghosts,  clowns,  and  kings,  and  with  such 
real  and  definite  sources  of  enjoyment,  they  will  take  the  additional  trouble 
to  loarn  half  a  dozen  quotations,  without  understanding  them,  and  admit  th« 
superiority  of  Phakspeare  without  further  demur. 


282  I'AINTING. 

that  any  new  work  of  equal  merit  can  be  impartially  compared 
with  it,  except  by  minds  not  only  educated  and  generally 
capable  of  appreciating  merit,  but  strong  enough  to  shake 
off  the  weight  of  prejudice  and  association,  which  invariably 
incline  them  to  the  older  favorite. 

There  is  sublimity  and  power  in  every  field  of  nature  from 
the  pole  to  the  line ;  and  though  the  painters  of  one  country 
are  often  better  and  greater,  universally,  than  those  of  another, 
this  is  less  because  the  subjects  of  art  are  wanting  anywhere, 
than  because  one  country  or  one  age  breeds  mighty  and  think- 
ing men,  and  another  none. 

The  world  does,  indeed,  succeed — oftencr  than  is,  perhaps, 
altogether  well  for  the  world — in  making  Yes  mean  No,  and 
No  mean  Yes.  But  the  world  has  never  succeeded,  nor  ever 
will,  in  making  itself  delight  in  black  clouds  more  than  in  blue 
sky,  or  love  the  dark  earth  better  than  the  rose  that  grows 
From  it.  Happily  for  mankind,  beauty  and  ugliness  are  as 
positive  in  their  nature  as  physical  pain  and  pleasure,  as  light 
and  darkness,  or  as  life  and  death ;  and,  though  they  may  be 
denied  or  misunderstood  in  many  fantastic  ways,  the  most 
subtle  reasoner  will  at  least  find  that  color  and  sweetness  are 
still  attractive  to-  him,  and  that  no  logic  will  enable  him  to 
think  the  rainbow  sombre,  or  the  violet  scentless.  But  the 
theory  that  beauty  was  merely  a  result  of  custom  was  verj 
common  in  Johnson's  time.  Goldsmith  has,  I  think,  expressed 
it  with  more  force  and  wit  than  any  other  writer,  in  various 
passages  of  the  Citizen  of  thfc  World.  And  it  was,  indeed,  a 
curious  retribution  of  the  folly  of  the  world  of  art,  which  for 
some  three  centuries  had  given  itself  recklessly  to  the  pursuit 
of  beauty,  that  at  last  it  should  be  led  to  deny  the  very  exist- 
ence of  what  it  had  so  morbidly  and  passionately  sought.  11 


THE   IDEAL    OF    HUMANITY.  283 

was  as  if  a  child  should  leave  its  home  to  pursue  the  rainbow 
and  then,  breathless  and  hopeless,  declare  that  it  did  not  exist. 
Nor  is  the  lesson  less  useful  which  may  be  gained  in  observing 
the  adoption  of  such  a  theory  by  Reynolds  himself.  It  shows 
.  bow  completely  an  artist  may  be  unconscious  of  the  principles 
of  his  own  work,  and  how  he  may  be  led  by  instinct  to  do  all 
that  is  right,  while  he  is  misled  by  false  logic  to  say  all  that  is 
wrong.  For  nearly  every  word  that  Reynolds  wrote  was  con- 
trary to  his  own  practice ;  he  seems  to  have  been  born  to 
teach  all  error  by  his  precept,  and  all  excellence  by  his  exam- 
ple ;  he  enforced  with  his  lips  generalization  and  idealism, 
while  with  his  pencil  he  was  tracing  the  patterns  of  the  dresses 
of  the  belles  of  his  day  ;  he  exhorted  his  pupils  to  attend  only 
to  the  invariable,  while  he  himself  was  occupied  in  distinguish- 
ing every  variation  of  womanly  temper ;  and  he  denied  the 
existence  of  the  beautiful,  at  the  same  instant  that  he  arrested 
it  as  it  passed,  and  perpetuated  it  for  ever. 

The  knowing  of  rules  and  the  exertion  of  judgment  have  a 
tendency  to  check  and  confuse  the  fancy  in  its  flow;  so  that  it 
will  follow,  that,  in  exact  proportion  as  a  master  knows  anything 
about  rules  of  right  and  wrong,  he  is  likely  to  be  uninventive ; 
and  in  exact  proportion  as  he  holds  higher  rank  and  has  nobler 
inventive  power,  he  will  know  less  of  rules;  not  despising  them, 
but  simply  feeling  that  between  him  and  them  there  is  nothing 
in  common, — that  dreams  cannot  be  ruled — that  as  they  come 
so  they  must  be  caught,  and  they  cannot  be  caught  in  any 
other  shape  than  that  they  come  in;  and  that  he  might  as  well 
attempt  to  rule  a  rainbow  into  rectitude,  or  cut  notches  in  a 
moth's  wings  to  hold  it  by,  as  in  any  wise  attempt  to  modify, 
by  rule,  the  forms  of  the  involuntary  vision. 

And  this,  which  by  reason  we  have  thus  anticipated,  is  in 
reality  universally  so.  There  is  no  exception.  The  great  men 


284  PAIXT1XG. 

never  know  how  or  why  they  do  things.  They  have  no  ruler; 
cannot  comprehend  the  nature  of  rules ; — do  not,  usually,  even 
know,  in  what  they  do,  what  is  best  or  what  is  worst :  to  them 
it  is  all  the  same  ;  something  they  cannot  help  saying  or  doing, 
-—one  piece  of  it  as  good  as  another,  and  none  of  it  (it  secnie 
to  them)  worth  much.  The  moment  any  man  begins  to  talk 
about  rules,  in  whatsoever  art,  you  may  know  him  for  a  second- 
rate  man  ;  and,  if  he  talks  about  them  much,  he  is  a  third-rate, 
or  not  an  artist  at  all.  To  this  rule  there  is  no  exception  in  any 
art ;  but  it  is  perhaps  better  to  be  illustrated  in  the  art  of 
music  than  in  that  of  painting.  I  fell  by  chance  the  other  day 
upon  a  work  of  De  Stendhal's,  "Vies  de  Haydn,  de  Mozart,  et 
de  Metastase,"  fuller  of  common  sense  than  any  book  I  ever 
read  on  the  arts ;  though  I  see,  by  the  slight  references  made 
occasionally  to  painting,  that  the  author's  knowledge  therein 
is  warped  and  limited  by  the  elements  of  general  teaching  in 
the  schools  around  him ;  and  I  have  not  yet,  therefore,  looked 
at  what  he  has  separately  written  on  painting.  But  one  or 
two  passages  .out  of  this  book  on  music  are  closely  to  our 
present  purpose. 

"  Counterpoint  is  related  to  mathematics :  a  fool,  with  pa- 
tience, becomes  a  respectable  savant  in  that ;  but  for  the  part 
of  genius,  melody,  it  has  no  rules.  No  art  is  so  utterly  deprived 
of  precepts  for  the  production  of  the  beautiful.  So  much  the 
hotter  for  it  and  for  us.  Cimarosa,  when  first  at  Prague  his 
air  was  executed,  Pria  che  spunti  in  ciel  1'Aurora,  never  heai-d 
the  pedants  say  to  him,  '  Your  air  is  fine,  because  you  have 
followed  such  and  such  a  rule  established  by  Pergolese  in  such 
an  one  of  his  airs;  but  it  would  be  finer  still  if  you  had  conformed 
yourself  to  siich  another  rule  from  Avhich  Galluppi  revi-r 
deviated." 

Tes:  "so  much  the  better  for  it,  and  for  us;"  but  I  trust 
the  time  will  soon  come  when  melody  in  painting  will  be 


THE    IDEAL    OF    HUMANITY.  285 

understood,  no  less  than  in  music,  and  when  people  will  find 
that,  there  also,  the  great  melodists  have  no  rules,  and  cannot 
have  any,  and  that  there  are  In  this,  as  in  sound,  "no  precepts 
for  the  production  of  the  beautiful." 

Again.  "Behold,  my  friend,  an  example  of  that  simple 
«ray  of  answering  which  embarrasses  much.  One  asked  him 
(Haydn)  the  reason  for  a  harmony — for  a  passage's  being 
assigned  to  one  instrument  rather  than  another;  but  all  he  ever 
answered  was,  'I  have  done  it,  because  it  does  well.' "  Farther 
on,  De  Stendhal  relates  an  anecdote  of  Haydn  ;  I  believe  ono 
well  known,  but  so  much  to  our  purpose  that  I  repeat  it. 
Haydn  had  agreed  to  give  some  lessons  in  counterpoint  to  an 
English  nobleman.  "  'For  our  first  lesson,'  said  the  pupil, 
already  learned  in  the  art — drawing  at  the  same  time  a  quatuor  of 
Haydn's  from  his  pocket, — '  for  our  first  lesson,  may  we  examine 
this  quatuor ;  and  will  you  tell  me  the  reasons  of  certain 
modulations,  which  I  cannot  entirely  a'pprove,  because  they 
are  contrary  to  the  principles?'  Haydn,  a  little  surprised, 
declared  himself  ready  to  answer.  The  nobleman  began;  and 
at  the  very  first  measures  found  matter  for  objection.  Haydn, 
who  invented  habitually,  and  who  was  the  contrary  of  a  pedant, 
found  himself  much  embarrassed,  and  answered  always,  'I  have 
done  that  because  it  has  a  good  effect.  I  have  put  that  passage 
there  because  it  does  well.'  The  Englishman,  who  judged  that 
these  ans  \vers  proved  nothing,  recommenced  his  proofs,  and 
demonstrated  to  him,  by  very  good  reasons,  that  this  quatuor 
was  good  for  nothing.  'But,  my  lord,  arrange  this  quatuor 
then  to  your  fancy, — play  it  so,  and  you  will  see  which  of  the 
two  ways  is  the  best.'  'But  why  is  yours  the  best  which  ia 
contrary  to  the  rules?'  'Because  it  is  the  pleasantest.'  The 
nobleman  replied.  Haydn  at  last  lost  patience,  and  said,  'I  see, 
my  lord,  it  is  you  who  have  the  goodness  to  give  lessons  to  me, 
au-l  truly  I  am  forced  to  confess  to  you  that  I  do  not  deservj 


286  PAINTING. 

the  honor.'  The  partizan  of  the  rules  departed,  still  astouisliod 
that  in  following  the  rules  to  the  letter  one  cannot  infallibly 
produce  a  '  Matrimonio  Segreto?  " 

This  anecdote,  whether  in  all  points  true  or  not,  is  in  its  ten- 
dency most  instructive,  except  only  in  that  it  makes  one  false 
inference  or  admission,  namely,  that  a  good  composition  can 
be  contrary  to  the  rules.  It  may  be  contrary  to  certain  prin- 
ciples, supposed  in  ignorance  to  be  general ;  but  every  great 
composition  is  in  perfect  harmony  with  all  true  rules,  and 
involves  thousands  too  delicate  for  ear,  or  eye,  or  thought,  to 
trace ;  still  it  is  possible  to  reason,  with  infinite  pleasure  and 
profit,  about  these  principles,  when  the  thing  is  once  done ; 
only,  all  our  reasoning  will  not  enable  any  one  to  do  another 
thing  like  it,  because  all  reasoning  falls  infinitely  short  of  the 
divine  instinct.  Thus  we  may  reason  wisely  over  the  way  a 
bee  builds  its  comb,  and  be  profited  by  finding  out  certain 
things  about  the  angles  of  it.  But  the  bee  knows  nothing 
about  those  matters.  It  builds  its  comb  in  a  far  more  inevita- 
ble way.  And,  from  a  bee  to  Paul  Veronese,  all  master-work- 
ers work  with  this  awful,  this  inspired  unconsciousness. 

I  said  just  now  that  there  was  no  exception  to  this  law, 
that  the  great  men  never  knew  how  or  why  they  did 
things.  It  is,  of  course,  only  with  caution  that  such  a  broad 
statement  should  be  made ;  but  I  have  seen  much  of  different 
kinds  of  artists,  and  I  have  always  found  the  knowledge  of, 
and  attention  to,  rules  so  accurately  in  the  inverse  ratio  to  the 
power  of  the  painter,  that  I  have  myself  no  doubt  that  the  law 
is  constant,  and  that  men's  smallness  may  be  trigonometrical!}! 
estimated  by  the  attention  which,  in  their  work,  they  pay  to 
principles,  especially  principles  of  composition.  The  general 
way  in  which  the  great  men  speak  is  of  "  trying  to  do  "  this 
or  that,  just  as  a  child  would  tell  of  something  he  had  seen 
and  could  not  utter. 


THE    IDEAL    OF    HUMANITY.  287 

And  this  is  the  reason  for  the  somewhat  singular,  "but  very 
palpable  truth  that  the  Chinese,  and  Indians,  and  other  semi 
civilized  nations,  can  color  better  than  we  do,  and  that  an 
Indian  shawl  or  Chinese  vase  are  still,  in  invention  of  color, 
inimitable  by  us.  It  is  their  glorious  ignorance  of  all  rules  that 
does  it ;  the  pure  and  true  instincts  have  play,  and  do  their 
work, — instincts  so  subtle,  that  the  least  warping  or  compres- 
sion breaks  or  blunts  them ;  and  the  moment  we  begin  teach- 
ing people  any  rules  about  color,  and  make  them  do  this  or 
that,  we  crush  the  instinct  generally  for  ever.  Hence,  hitherto, 
it  has  been  an  actual  necessity,  in  order  to  obtain  power  of 
coloring,  that  a  nation  should  be  half  savage :  everybody  could 
color  in  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries;  but  W3  were  ruled 
and  legalized  into  grey  in  the  fifteenth  ; — only  a  little  salt  sim- 
plicity of  their  sea  natures  at  Venice  still  keeping  their  pre- 
cious, shell-fishy  purpleness  and  power ;  and  now  that  is  gone ; 
and  nobody  can  color  anywhere,  except  the  Hindoos  and  Chi- 
nese ;  but  that  need  not  be  so,  and  will  riot  be  so  long  ;  for,  in 
a  little  while,  people  will  find  out  their  mistake,  and  give  up 
talking  about  rules  of  color,  and  then  everybody  will  coloi 
again,  as  easily  as  they  now  talk. 

Such,  then,  being  the  generally  passive  or  instinctive  charac- 
ter of  right  invention,  it  may  be  asked  how  these  unmanageable 
instincts  are  to  be  rendered  practically  serviceable  in  historical 
or  poetical  painting, — especially  historical,  in  which  between 
men  who,  like  Horace  Vernet,  David,  or  Domenico  Tintoret, 
would  employ  themselves  in  painting,  more  or  less  graphically, 
the  outward  verities  of  passing  events — battles,  councils,  <fec. 
—of  their  day  (who,  supposing  them  to  work  worthily  of  their 
mission,  would  become,  properly  so  called,  historical  or  narra 
live  painters) ;  and  men  who  sought,  in  scenes  of  perhaps  less 
outward  importance,  "noble  grounds  for  noble  emotion;" — 
who  u  ould  be,  in  a  certain  separate  sens*1,  poetical  painters  , 


288  PAINTING. 

some  of  them  taking  for  subjects  events  which  had  actually 
happened,  and  others  themes  from  the  poets;  or,  better  sti'i, 
becoming  poets  themselves  in  the  entire  sense,  and  inventing 
the  story  as  they  painted  it.  Painting  seems  to  me  only  just 
to  be  beginning,  in  tliis  sense  also,  to  take  its  proper  position 
baside  literature. 

Finally,  as  far  as  I  can  observe,  it  is  a  constant  law  that  the 
greatest  men,  whether  poets  or  historians,  live  entirely  in  their 
own  age,  and  that  the  greatest  fruits  of  their  work  are  gathered 
out  of  their  own  age,  Dante  paints  Italy  in  the  thirteenth 
century ;  Chaucer,  England  in  the  fourteenth ;  Masaccio, 
Florence  in  the  fifteenth ;  Tintoret,  Venice  in  the  sixteenth ; 
— all  of  them  utterly  regardless  of  anachronism  and  minor 
error  of  every  kind,  but  getting  always  vital  truth  out  of  the 
vital  present. 

If  it  be  said  that  Shakspere  wrote  perfect  historical  plays  on 
subjects  belonging  to  the  preceding  centuries,  I  answer,  that 
they  are  perfect  plays  just  because  there  is  no  care  about  cen- 
turies in  them,  but  a  life  which  all  men  recognise  for  the 
human  life  of  all  time ;  and  this  it  is,  not  because  Shakspere 
sought  to  give  universal  truth,  but  because,  painting  honestly 
and  completely  from  the  men  about  him,  he  painted  that  human 
nature  which  is,  indeed,  constant  enough, — a  rogue  in  the 
fifteenth  century  being,  at  heart,  what  a  rogue  is  in  the  nine- 
teenth and  was  in  the  twelfth  ;  and  an  honest  or  a  knightly 
man  being,  in  like  manner,  very  similar  to  other  such  at  any 
other  time.  And  the  work  of  these  great  idealists  is,  there- 
fore, always  universal ;  not  because  it  is  not  portrait,  but 
because  it  is  complete  portrait  down  to  the  heart,  which  is  the 
game  in  all  ages :  and  the  work  of  the  mean  idealists  is  not  uni- 
versal, not  because  it  is  portrait,  but  because  it  is  half  port  rait. 
— of  the  outside,  the  manners  and  the  dress,  not  of  the  heart. 
Thus  Tintoret  and  Shakspere  paint,  both  of  them,  simply 


THE    IDEAL    OF    HUMANITY.  289 

Venetian  and  English  nature  as  they  saw  it  in  their  time, 
down  to  the  root;  and  it  does  for  all  time;  but  as  for  any 
care  to  cast  themselves  into  the  particular  ways  and  tones  of 
thought,  or  custom,  of  past  time  in  their  historical  work,  you 
will  find  it  in  neither  of  them,  nor  in  any  other  perfectly  great 
man  that  I  know  of. 

If  there  had  been  no  vital  truth  in  their  present,  it  is  hard 
to  say  what  these  men  could  have  done.  I  suppose,  primarily, 
they  would  not  have  existed;  that  they,  and  the  matter  they 
have  to  treat  of,  are  given  together,  and  that  the  strength  of 
the  nation  and  its  historians  correlatively  rise  and  fall — Hero- 
dotus springing  out  of  the  dust  of  Marathon.  It  is  also  hard 
to  say  how  far  our  better  geneial  acquaintance  with  minor 
details  of  past  history  may  make  us  able  to  turn  the  shadow 
on  the  imaginative  dial  backwards,  and  naturally  to  live,  and 
even  live  strongly  if  we  choose,  in  past  periods  ;  but  this  main 
truth  will  always  be  unshaken,  that  the  only  historical  painting 
deserving  the  name  I&  portraiture  of  our  own  living  men  and 
our  own  passing  times,*  and  that  all  efforts  to  summon  up  the 
events  of  bygone  periods,  though  often  useful  and  touching, 
must  come  under  an  inferior  class  of  poetical  painting ;  nor 
will  it,  I  believe,  ever  be  much  followed  as  their  main  work 
by  the  strongest  men,  but  only  by  the  weaker  and  compara- 
tively sentimental  (rather  than  imaginative)  groups. 

Suppose  you  have  to  teach  two  children  drawing,  one 
thoroughly  clever  and  active-minded,  the  other  dull  and  slow ; 
and  you  put  before  them  Jullien's  chalk  studies  of  heads— 
etudes  d  deux  ci-ayons — and  desire  them  to  be  copied.  The  dull 
child  will  slowly  do  your  bidding,  blacken  his  paper  and  rub  it 
white  again,  and  patiently  and  painfully,  in  the  course  of  three 
or  four  years,  attain  to  the  performance  of  a  chalk  head,  not 

*  See  Edinburgh  Lectures,  p.  217. 
13 


290  PAINTING. 

much  worse  than  his  original,  but  still  of  less  viJue  than  the 
paper  it  is  drawn  upon.  But  the  clever  child  will  not,  or  will 
only  by  force,  consent  to  this  discipline.  He  finds  other  means 
of  expressing  himself  with  his  pencil  somehow  or  another;  and 
presently  y  DU  find  his  paper  covered  with  sketches  of  his 
grandfather  and  grandmother,  and  uncles,  and  cousins, — 
sketches  of  the  room,  and  the  house,  and  the  cat,  and  the  dog, 
and  the  country  outside,  and  everything  in  the  world  he  can 
set  his  eyes  on ;  and  he  gets  on,  and  even  his  child's  work  has 
a  value  in  it- — a  truth  which  makes  it  worth  keeping ;  no  one 
knows  how  precious,  perhaps,  that  portrait  of  his  grandfather 
may  be,  if  any  one  has  but  the  sense  to  keep  it  till  the  time 
when  the  old  man  can  be  seen  no  more  up  the  lawn,  nor  by 
the  wood.  That  child  is  working  in  the  middle-age  spirit — the 
other  in  the  modern  spirit. 

But  there  is  something  still  more  striking  in  the  evils  which 
have  resulted  from  the  modern  regardlessness  of  truth.  Con- 
sider, for  instance,  its  effect  on  what  is  called  historical  painting. 
"What  do  you  at  present  mean  by  historical  painting  ?  No\v- 
a-days,  it  means  the  endeavoring,  by  the  power  of  imagination, 
to  portray  nome  historical  event  of  past  days.  But  in  the 
middle  ages,  it  meant  representing  the  acts  of  their  own  days; 
and  that  is  the  only  historical  painting  worth  a  straw.  Of  all 
the  wastes  of  tune  and  sense  which  modernism  has  invented — 
and  they  are  many — none  are  so  ridiculous  as  this  endeavor 
to  represent  past  history.  What  do  you  suppose  our  descen- 
dants will  care  for  our  imaginations  of  the  events  of  former 
days  '<  Suppose  the  Greeks,  instead  of  representing  their  own 
warriors  as  they  fought  at  Marathon,  had  left  us  nothing  but 
their  imaginations  of  Egyptian  battles ;  and  suppose  the  Italians, 
in  like  manner,  instead  of  portraits  of  Can  Grande  and  Dante, 
or  of  Leo  the  Tenth  and  Raphael,  had  left  us  nothing  but 
imnginary  portraits  of  Pericles  and  Miltiades  ?  What  fools  we 


H1STOKICAL   PAINTING.  291 

should  have  thought  them!  how  bitterly  we  should  have  been 
provjked  with  their  folly!  And  that  is  precisely  what  our 
descendants  will  feel  towards  us,  so  far  as  our  grand  historical 
and  classical  schools  are  concerned.  What  do  we  care,  they 
will  say,  what  those  19th  century  people  fancied  about  Greek 
and  Roman  history !  If  they  had  left  us  a  few  plain  and  rational 
sculptures  and  pictures  of  their  own  battles,  and  their  own 

,    men,  in  their  everyday  dress,  we  should  have  thanked  them. 

s  "Well,  but,  you  will  say,  we  have  left  them  portraits  of  our 
great  men,  and  paintings  of  our  great  battles.  Yes,  you  have 
indeed,  and  that  is  the  only  historical  painting  that  you  either 
have  or  can  have ;  but  you  don't  call  that  historical  painting. 
You  don't  thank  the  men  who  do  it ;  you  look  down  upon  them 
and  dissuade  them  from  it,  and  tell  them  they. don't  belong  to 
the  grand  schools.  And  yet  they  are  the  only  true  historical 
painters,  and  the  only  men  who  will  produce  any  effect  on 
their  own  generation,  or  any  other.  Wilkie  was  an  historical 
painter,  Chantrey  an  historical  sculptor,  because  they  painted, 
or  carved,  the  veritable  things  and  men  they  saw,  not  men 
and  things  as  they  believed  they  might  have  been,  or  should 
have  been.  But  no  one  tells  such  men  they  are  historical 
painters,  and  they  are  discontented  with  what  they  do;  and 
poor  Wilkie  must  needs  travel  to  see  the  grand  school,  and 
imitate  the  grand  school,  and  ruin  himself.  And  you  have  had 
multitudes  of  other  painters  ruined,  from  the  beginning,  by  that 
grand  school.  There  was  Etty,  naturally  as  good  a  painter  as 
ever  lived,  but  no  one  told  him  what  to  paint,  and  he  studied 
the  antique,  and  the  grand  schools,  and  painted  dances  of 
nymphs  in  red  and  yellow  shawls  to  the  end  of  his  days.  Much 
good  may  they  do  you !  He  is  gone  to  the  grave,  a  lost  mind. 
There  was  Flaxman,  another  naturally  great  man,  with  as  true 
an  eye  for  nature  as  Raphael, — he  stumbles  over  the  blocks  of 
the  antique  statues — wanders  in  the  dark  valley  of  their  ruins 


292  PAINTING 

to  the  end  of  his  days.  He  has  left  you  a  few  outlines  of  mu* 
cular  men  straddling  and  frowning  behind  round  shields. 
Much  good  may  they  do  you !  Another  lost  mind.  And  ot 
those  who  are  lost  namelessly,  who  have  not  strength  enough 
even  to  make  themselves  known,  the  poor  pale  students  who 
lie  buried  for  ever  in  the  abysses  of  the  great  schoolf.  nc 
account  can  be  rendered ;  they  are  numberless. 

And  the  wonderful  thing  is,  that  of  all  these  men  whom  you 
now  have  come  to  call  the  great  masters,  there  was  not  one 
who  confessedly  did  not  paint  his  own  present  world,  plainly 
and  truly.  Homer  sang  of  what  he  saw ;  Phidias  carved  what 
he  saw;  Raphael  painted  the  men  of  his  own  time  in  their  own 
caps  and  mantles ;  and  every  man  who  has  arisen  to  eminence 
in  modem  times.has  done  so  altogether  by  his  working  in  their 
way,  and  doing  the  things  he  saw.  How  did  Reynolds  rise  ? 
Not  by  painting  Greek  women,  but  by  painting  the  glorious 
little  living  ladies  this,  and  ladies  that,  of  his  own  time.  How 
did  Hogarth  rise  ?  Not  by  painting  Athenian  follies,  but 
London  follies.  Who  are  the  men  who  have  made  an  impres- 
sion upon  you  yourselves, — upon  your  own  age  ?  I  suppose 
the  most  popular  painter  of  the  day  is  Landseer.  Do  you 
suppose  he  studied  dogs  and  eagles  out  of  the  Elgin  Marbles? 
And  yet  in  the  very  face  of  these  plain,  incontrovertible,  all- 
visible  facts,  we  go  on  from  year  to  year  with  the  base  system 
of  Academy  teaching,  in  spite  of  which  every  one  of  these  men 
has  risen  :  I  say  in  spite  of  the  entire  method  and  aim  of  our 
art-teaching.  It  destroys  the  greater  number  of  its  pupils 
altogether;  it  hinders  and  paralyses  the  greatest.  There  i.s  not 
a  living  painter  whose  eminence  is  not  in  spite  of  everything  he 
has  been  taught  from  his  youth  upwards,  and  who,  whatever 
his  eminence  may  be,  has  not  suffered  much  injury  in  the  course 
of  his  victory.  For  observe :  this  love  of  what  is  called  ideality 
or  beauty  in  preference  to  truth,  operates  n^t  only  in  making 


niSTOEICAL   PAIXTIXG.  .   293 

as  cnoose  the  past  rather  than  the  present  for  our  subjects,  but 
it  makes  us  falsify  the  present  when  we  do  take  it  for  our 
subject.  I  said  just  now  that  portrait-painters  were  historical 
painters ; — so  they  are ;  but  not  good  ones,  because  not  faithful 
ones.  The  beginning  and  end  of  modern  portraiture  is  adulation 
The  painters  cannot  live  but  by  flattery ;  we  should  desert 
them  if  they  spoke  honestly.  And  therefore  we  can  have  no 
good  portraiture ;  for  in  the  striving  after  that  which  is  not  in 
their  model,  they  lose  the  inner  and  deeper  nobleness  which  is 
in  their  model.  I  saw  not  long  ago,  for  the  first  time,  the 
portrait  of  a  man  whom  I  knew  well, — a  young  man,  but  a 
religious  man, — and  one  who  had  suffered  much  from  sickness. 
The  whole  dignity  of  his  features  and  person  depended  upon 
the  expression  of  serene  yet  solemn  purpose  sustaining  a  feeble 
frame  ;  and  the  painter,  by  way  of  flattering  him,  strengthened 
him,  and  made  him  athletic  in  body,  gay  in  countenance,  idle 
in  gesture ;  and  the  whole  power  and  being  of  the  man  himself 
were  lost.  And  this  is  still  more  the  case  with  our  public 
portraits.  You  have  a  portrait,  for  instance,  of  the  Duke  of 
Wellington  at  the  end  of  the  North  Bridge,- — one  of  the 
thousand  equestrian  statues  of  Modernism, — studied  from  the 
show-riders  of  the  amphitheatre,  with  their  horses  on  their 
hind-legs  in  the  saw-dust.  Do  you  suppose  that  was  the  way 
the  Duke  sat  when  your  destinies  depended  on  him?  when  the 
foam  hung  from  the  lips  of  his  tired  horse,  and  its  wet  limbs 
were  dashed  with  the  bloody  slime  of  the  battle-field,  and  he 
himself  sat  anxious  in  his  quietness,  grieved  in  his  fearlessness,  aa 
lie  watched,  scythe-stroke  by  scythe-stroke,  the  gathering  in  of 
-the  harvest  of  death  ?  You  would  have  done  something  had 
you  thus  left  his  image  in  the  enduring  iron,  but  nothing 
now. 

But  the  time  has  at  last  come  for  all  this  to  be  put  an  end 
to ;  and  nothing  can  well  bt  more  extraordinary  than  the  way 


294  .  PALNTLSfG. 

in  which  the  men  have  risen  who  are  to  do  it.  Pupils  in  the 
same  schools,  receiving  precisely  the  same  instruction  wliich  foi 
so  long  a  time  has  paralysed  every  one  of  our  painters, — these 
boys  agree  in  disliking  to  copy  the  antique  statues  set  before 
them.  They  copy  them  as  they  are  bid,  and  they  copy  them 
better  than  any  one  else,  they  carry  off  prize  after  prize,  and 
yet  they  hate  their  work.  At  last  they  are  admitted  to  study 
from  the  life ;  they  find  the  life  very  different  from  the  antique, 
and  say  so.  Their  teachers  tell  them  the  antique  is  the  best, 
and  they  mustn't  copy  the  life.  They  agree  among  themselves 
that  they  like  the  life,  and  that  copy  it  they  will.  They  do 
copy  it  faithfully,  and  their  masters  forthwith  declare  them  to 
be  lost  men.  Their  fellow-students  hiss  them  whenever  they 
enter  the  room.  They  can't  help  it ;  they  join  hands  and  tacitly 
resist  both  the  hissing  and  the  instruction.  Accidentally,  a 
few  prints  of  the  works  of  Giotto,  a  few  casts  from  those  of 
Ghiberti,  fall  into  their  hands,  and  they  see  in  these  something 
they  never  saw  before — something  intensely  and  everlastingly 
true.  They  examine  farther  into  the  matter ;  they  discover  foi 
themselves  the  greater  part  of  what  I  have  laid  before  you  to- 
night ;  they  fonn  themselves  into  a  body,  and  enter  upon  that 
crusade  which  has  hitherto  been  yictorious.  And  which  will 
be  absolutely  and  triumphantly  victorious.  The  great  mistake 
which  has  hitherto  prevented  the  public  mind  from  fully  going 
with  them  must  soon  be  corrected.  That  mistake  was  the 
supposition  that,  instead  of  wishing  to  recur  to  the  principles 
of  the  early  ages,  these  men  wished  to  bring  back  the  ignorance 
of  the  early  ages.  This  notion,  grounded  first  on  some  hardness 
in  their  earlier  works,  which  resulted — as  it  must  always  result 
— from  the  downright  and  earnest  effort  to  paint  nature  as  in 
a  looking-glass,  was  fostered  partly  by  the  jealousy  of  their 
beaten  competitors,  and  partly  by  the  pure,  perverse,  and 
hopeless  ignorance  of  the  whole  body  of  art-critics,  so  called, 


SCHOOL   DECORATION.  295 

connected  with  the  press.     No  notion  was  ever  more  baseless 
or  more  ridiculous. 

The  first  and  most  important  kind  of  public  buildings  which 
we  are  always  sure  to  want,  are  schools :  and  I  would  ask  you 
to  consider  very  carefully,  whether  we  may  not  wisely  introduce 
some  great  changes  in  the  way  of  school  decoration.  Hitherto, 
as  far  as  I  know,  it  has  either  been  so  difficult  to  give  all  the 
education  we  wanted  to  our  lads,  that  we  have  been  obliged  to 
do  it,  if  at  all,  with  cheap  furniture  in  bare  walls  ;  or  else  we 
have  considered  that  cheap  furniture  and  bare  walls  are  a 
proper  part  of  the  means  of  education;  and  supposed  that  boys 
learned  best  when  they  sat  on  hard  forms,  and  had  nothing  but 
blank  plaster  about  and  above  them  whereupon  to  employ  their 
spare  attention;  also,  that  it  was  as  well  they  should  be 
accustomed  to  rough  and  ugly  conditions  of  things,  partly  by 
way  of  preparing  them  for  the  hardships  of  life,  and  partly 
that  there  might  be  the  least  possible  damage  done  to  floors 
and  forms,  in  the  event  of  their  becoming,  during  the  master's 
absence,  the  fields  or  instruments  of  battle.  All  this  is  so  far 
well  and  necessary,  as  it  relates  to  the  training  of  country  lads, 
and  the  iirst  training  of  boys  hi  general.  But  there  certainly 
comes  a  period  in  the  life  of  a  well  educated  youth,  in  which 
one  of  the  principal  elements  of  his  education  is,  or  ought  to 
be,  to  give  him  refinement  of  habits ;  and  not  only  to  teach  him 
the  strong  exercises  of  which  his  frame  is  capable,  but  also  to 
increase  his  bodily  sensibility  and  refinement,  and  show  him 
such  small  matters  as  the  way  of  handling  things  properly, 
and  treating  them  considerately.  Not  only  so,  but  I  believe 
the  notion  of  fixing  the  attention  by  keeping  the  room  empty, 
is  a  wholly  mistaken  one :  I  think  it  is  just  in  the  emptiest 
room  that  the  mind  wanders  most ;  for  it  gets  restless,  like  a 
bird,  for  want  of  a  perch,  ind  casts  about  for  any  possible 


296  TAINTING. 

means  of  getting  out  and  away.  And  even  if  it  be  fixed,  by  an 
effort,  on  the  business  in  hand,  that  business  becomes  itself 
repulsive,  more  than  it  need  be,  by  the  vileness  of  its  associa- 
tions; and  many  a  study  appears  dull  or  painful  to  a  boy,  when 
it  is  pursued  on  a  blotted  deal  desk,  under  a  wall  with  nothing 
on  it  but  scratches  and  pegs,  which  would  have  been  pursued 
pleasantly  enough  hi  a  curtained  corner  of  his  father's  library, 
or  at  the  lattice  window  of  his  cottage.  Nay,  my  own  beliei 
is,  that  the  best  study  of  all  is  the  most  beautiful ;  and  that  a 
quiet  glade  of  forest,  or  the  nook  of  a  lake  shore,  are  worth  all 
the  schoolrooms  in  Christendom,  when  once  you  are  past  the 
multiplication  table ;  but  be  that  as  it  may,  there  is  no  question 
at  all  but  that  a  time  ought  to  come  in  the  life  of  a  well 
trained  youth,  when  he  can  sit  at  a  writing  table  without 
wanting  to  throw  the  inkstand  at  his  neighbor ;  and  when 
also  he  will  feel  moi'e  capable  of  certain  efforts  of  mind  with 
beautiful  and  refined  forms  about  him  than  with  ugly  ones. 
When  that  time  comes  he  ought  to  be  advanced  into  the 
decorated  schools ;  and  this  advance  ought  to  be  one  of  the 
important  and  honorable  epochs  of  his  life. 

I  have  not  time,  however,  to  insist  on  the  mere  serviceablenesa 
to  our  youth  of  refined  architectural  decoration,  as  such ;  for  I 
want  you  to  consider  the  probable  influence  of  the  particular 
kind  of  decoration  which  I  wish  you  to  get  for  them,  namely, 
historical  painting.  You  know  we  have  hitherto  been  in  the 
habit  of  conveying  all  our  historical  knowledge,  such  as  it  is, 
by  the  ear  only,  never  by  the  eye ;  all  our  notions  of  things 
being  ostensibly  derived  from  verbal  description,  not  from  sight. 
Kow,  I  have  no  doubt  that,  as  we  grow  gradually  wiser — and 
we  are  doing  so  every  day — we  shall  discover  at  last  that  the 
eye  is  a  nobler  organ  than  the  ear ;  and  tha*  through  the  eye 
we  must,  in  reality,  obtain,  or  put  into  form,  nearly  all  the 
useful  information  we  are  to  have  about  this  world.  Even  as 


SCHOOL    DECORATION.  297 

the  matter  stands,  you  will  find  that  the  knowledge  which  a 
boy  is  supposed  to  receive  from  verbal  description  is  only 
available  to  him  so  far  as  in  any  underhand  way  he  gets  a 
sight  of  the  thing  you  are  talking  about.  I  remember  well 
that,  for  many  years  of  my  life,  the  only  notion  I  had  of  the  look 
of  a  Greek  knight  was  complicated  between  recollection  of  a 
small  engraving  in  my  pocket  Pope's  Homer,  and  reverent 
study  of  the  Horse-Guards.  And  though  I  believe  that  most 
boys  collect  their  ideas  from  more  varied  sources,  and  arrange 
them  more  carefully  than  I  did ;  still,  whatever  sources  they 
seek  must  always  be  ocular :  if  they  are  clever  boys,  they  will 
go  and  look  at  the  Greek  vases  and  sculptures  in  the  British 
Museum,  and  at  the  weapons  in  our  armories — they  will  see 
what  real  armor  is  like  in  lustre,  and  what  Greek  armor  was 
like  in  form,  and  so  put  a  fairly  true  image  together,  but  still 
not,  in  ordinary  cases,  a  very  living  or  interesting  one.  Now, 
the  use  of  your  decorative  painting  would  be,  in  myriads  of 
ways,  to  animate  their  history  for  them,  and  to  put  the  living 
aspect  of  past  things  before  their  eyes  as  faithfully  as  intelligent 
invention  can ;  so  that  the  master  shall  have  nothing  to  do  but 
once  to  point  to  the  schoolroom  walls,  and  for  ever  afterwards 
the  meaning  of  any  word  would  be  fixed  hi  a  boy's  mind  in  the 
best  possible  way.  Is  it  a  question  of  classical  dress — what  a 
tunic  was  like,  or  a  chlamys,  or  a  peplus  ?  At  this  day,  you 
have  to  point  to  some  vile  woodcut,  hi  the  middle  of  a 
dictionary  page,  representing  the  thing  hung  upon  a  stick; 
but  then,  you  would  point  to  a  hundred  figures,  wearing  the 
actual  dress,  in  its  fiery  colors,  in  all  the  actions  of  various 
stateliness  or  strength  ;  you  would  understand  at  once  how  it 
fell  round  the  people's  limbs  as  they  stood,  how  it  drifted  from 
their  shoulders  as  they  went,  how  it  veiled  their  faces  as  they 
wept,  how  it  covered  their  heads  in  the  day  of  battle.  Now,  if 
you  want  to  see  what  a  weapon  is  like,  yo"  refer,  in  like  manne^ 
*  13* 


SiyS  '  PAINTING. 

to  a  numbered  page,  in  which  there  are  spearheads  in  row  a, 
and  sword-hilts  in  symmetrical  groups;  and  gradually  the  boy 
gets  a  diin  mathematical  notion  how  one  scymitar  is  hooked  to 
the  light  and  another  to  the  left,  and  one  javelin  has  a  knob  to 
it  and  another  none :  while  one  glance  at  your  good  picture 
would  show  him, — and  the  first  rainy  afternoon  in  the  school 
room  would  for  ever  fix  in  his  mind, — the  look  of  the  sword 
and  spear  as  they  fell  or  flew ;  and  how  they  pierced,  or  bent, 
or  shattered — how  men  wielded  them,  and  how  men  died  by 
them.  But  far  more  than  all  this,  is  it  a  question  not  of 
clothes  or  weapons,  but  of  men?  how  can  we  sufficiently 
estimate  the  effect  on  the  mind  of  a  noble  youth,  at  the  time 
when  the  world  opens  to  him,  of  having  faithful  and  touching 
representations  put  before  him  of  the  acts  and  presences  of 
great  men — how  many  a  resolution,  which  would  alter  and 
exalt  the  whole  course  of  his  after-life,  might  be  formed,  when 
in  some  dreamy  twilight  he  met,  through  his  own  tears,  the 
fixed  eyes  of  those  shadows  of  the  great  dead,  unescapable  and 
calm,  piercing  to  his  soul ;  or  fancied  that  their  lips  moved  hi 
dread  reproof  or  soundless  exhortation.  And  if  but  for  one 
out  of  many  this  were  true — if  yet,  in  a  few,  you  could  be 
sure  that  such  influence  had  indeed  changed  their  thoughts 
and  destinies,  and  turned  the  eager  and  reckless  youth,  -\vlio 
would  have  cast  away  his  energies  on  the  race-horse  or  the 
gambling-table,  to  that  noble  life-race,  that  holy  life-hazard, 
which  should  win  all  glory  to  himself  and  all  good  to  his  country 
— would  not  that,  to  some  purpose,  be  "political  economy 
of  art?" 

And  observe,  there  could  be  no  monotony,  no  exhaustibleness, 
in  the  scenes  required  to  be  thus  portrayed.  Even  if  there  were, 
and  you  wanted  for  every  school  in  the  kingdom,  one  death  of 
Leonidas ;  one  battle  of  Marathon ;  one  death  of  Cleobis  and 
Bite  ;  trere  need  not  tl  erefore  be  more  monctony  in  your  art 


SCHOOL   DECORATION.  299 

than  there  was  in  the  repetition  of  a  given  cycle  of  subjects  by 
the  religious  painters  of  Italy.  But  we  ought  not  to  admit  a 
cycle  at  all.  For  though  we  had  as  many  great  schools  as  we 
have  great  cities  (one  day  I  hope  we  shall  have),  centimes  of 
painting  would  not  exhaust,  in  all  the  number  of  them,  the 
noble  and  pathetic  subjects  which  might  be  chosen  from  the 
history  of  even  one  noble  nation.  But,  besides  this,  you  will 
cot,  in  a  little  while,  limit  your  youths'  studies  to  so  narrow 
fields  as  you  do  now.  There  will  come  a  time — I  am  sure  of  it 
— when  it  will  be  found  that  the  same  practical  results,  both  in 
mental  discipline,  and  in  political  philosophy,  are  to  be  attained 
by  the  accurate  study  of  mediaeval  and  modern  as  of  ancient 
history ;  and  that  the  facts  of  mediaeval  and  modern  history 
are,  on  the  whole,  the  most  important  to  us.  And  among 
these  noble  groups  of  constellated  schools  which  I  foresee 
arising  in  our  England,  I  foresee  also  that  there  will  be  divided 
fields  of  thought ;  and  that  while  each  will  give  its  scholars  a 
great  general  idea  of  the  world's  history,  such  as  all  men  should 
possess — each  will  also  take  upon  itself,  as  its  own  special  duty, 
the  closer  study  of  the  course  of  events  in  some  given  place  or 
time.  It  will  review  the  rest  of  history,  but  it  will  exhaust  its 
own  special  field  of  it ;  and  found  its  moral  and  political  teaching 
on  the  most  perfect  possible  analysis  of  the  results  of  human 
conduct  in  one  place,  and  at  one  epoch.  And  then,  the  galleries 
of  that  school  will  be  painted  with  the  historical  scenes 
belonging  to  the  age  which  it  has  chosen  for  its  special  study. 

The  fact  is,  that  the  greater  number  of  persons  or  societies 
throughout  Europe,  whom  wealth,  or  chance,  or  inheritance 
has  put  in  the  possession  of  valuable  pictures,  do  not  know  a 
good  picture  from  a  bad  one,  and  have  no  idea  in  what  the 
value  of  a  picture  really  consists.  The  reputation  of  certain 
works  is  raised,  partly  by  accident,  partly  by  the  just  testi- 


300  PAINTING. 

mony  of  artists,  partly  and  generally  by  the  bad  tastes  ot  the 
public  (no  picture  that  I  know  of,  has  ever,  in  modern  times, 
attained  popularity,  in  the  full  sense  of  the  term,  -without 
having  some  exceedingly  bad  qualities  mingled  with  its  good 
ones),  and  when  this  reputation  has  once  been  completely 
established,  it  little  matters  to  what  state  the  picture  may  be 
reduced :  few  minds  are  so  completely  devoid  of  imagination 
as  to  be  unable  to  invest  it  with  the  beauties  which  they  have 
heard  attributed  to  it. 

This  being  so,  the  pictures  that  are  most  valued  are  for  the 
most  part  those  by  masters  of  established  renown,  which  are 
highly  or  neatly  finished,  and  of  a  size  small  enough  to  admit 
of  their  being  placed  in  galleries  or  saloons,  so  as  to  be  made 
subjects  of  ostentation,  and  to  be  easily  seen  by  a  crowd.  For 
the  support  of  the  fame  and  value  of  such  pictures,  little  more 
is  necessary  than  that  they  should  be  kept  bright,  partly  by 
cleaning,  which  is  incipient  destruction,  and  partly  by  what  is 
called  "  restoring,"  that  is,  painting  over,  which  is  of  course 
total  destruction.  Nearly  all  the  gallery  pictures  in  modern 
Europe  have  been  more  or  less  destroyed  by  one  or  the 
other  of  these  operations,  generally  exactly  in  proportion  to 
the  estimation  in  which  they  are  held  ;  and  as,  originally,  the 
smaller  and  more  highly  finished  works  of  any  great  master 
are  usually  his  worst,  the  contents  of  many  of  our  most  cele- 
brated galleries  are  by  this  time,  in  reality,  of  very  small 
value  indeed. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  most  precious  works  of  any  noble 
painter  are  usually  those  which  have  been  done  quickly,  and  iu 
the  heat  of  the  first  thought,  on  a  large  scale,  for  places  where 
there  was  little  likelihood  of  their  being  well  seen,  or  for 
patrons  from  whom  there  wasjittle  prospect  cf  rich  remunera- 
tion. In  general,  the  best  things  are  done  in  this  way,  or  else 
in  tlie  enthusiasm  and  pride  of  accomplishing  some  great  pur 


NEGLECT    OF    WORKS    OF    AKT.  301 

pose,  such  as  painting  a  Cathedral  or  a  Carapo-Santo  from  one 
end  to  the  other,  especially  when  the  time  has  been  short,  and 
circumstances  disadvantageous.  Works  thus  executed  are 
of  course  despised  on  account  of  their  quantity,  as  well  aa 
their  frequent  slightness,  in  the  places  where  they  exist ;  and 
they  are  too  large  to  be  portable,  and  too  vast  and  compre- 
hensive to  be  read  on  the  spot,  in  the  hasty  temper  of  the 
present  age.  They  are,  therefore,  almost  universally  neglected, 
whitewashed  by  custodes,  shot  at  by  soldiers,  suffered  to  drop 
from  the  walls  piecemeal  into  powder  and  rags  by  society  in 
general ;  but,  which  is  an  advantage  more  than  counterbalanc- 
ing all  this  evil,  they  are  not  often  "restored."  What  is  left  of 
them,  however  fragmentary,  however  ruinous,  however  ob- 
scured and  defiled,  is  almost  always  the  real  thing ;  there  are 
uo  fresh  readings :  and  therefore  the  greatest  treasures  of  art 
which  Europe  at  this  moment  possesses  are  pieces  of  old  plaster 
on  ruinous  brick  walls,  where  the  lizards  burrow  and  bask,  and 
which  few  other  living  creatures  ever  approach ;  and  torn  sheets 
of  dim  canvass,  in  waste  corners  of  churches ;  and  mildewed 
stains,  in  the  shape  of  human  figures,  on  the  walls  of  dark  cham- 
bers, which  now  and  then  an  exploring  traveller  causes  to  be 
unlocked  by  their  tottering  custode,  looks  hastily  round,  and 
retreats  from  in  a  weary  satisfaction  at  his  accomplished  duty. 
Many  of  the  pictures  on  the  ceilings  and  walls  of  the  Ducal 
Palace,  by  Paul  Veronese  and  Tintoret,  have  been  more  or 
less  reduced,  by  neglect,  to  this  condition.  Unfortunately 
they  are  not  altogether  without  reputation,  and  their  state 
has  drawn  the  attention  of  the  Venetian  authorities  and  acade- 
micians. It  constantly  happens,  that  public  bodies  who  will  not 
pay  five  pounds  to  preserve  a  picture,  will  pay  fifty  to  repaint 
it :  and  when  I  was  at  Venice  in  1 846,  there  were  two  reme- 
dial operations  carrying  on  at  one  and  the  same  time,  in  the 
two  buildings  which  contain  the  pictures  of  greatest  value  in 


802  PAINTING. 

the  city  (as  pieces  of  color,  of  greatest  value  in  the  world), 
curiously  illustrative  of  this  peculiarity  in  human  nature. 
Buckets  were  set  on  the  floor  of  the  Scuola  di  San  Rocco,  in 
every  shower,  to  catch  the  rain  which  came  through  the  pic 
tures  of  Tintoret  on  the  ceiling ;  while  in  the  Ducal  Palace, 
those  of  Paul  Veronese  were  themselves  laid  on  the  floor  to 
be  repainted ;  and  I  was  myself  present  at  the  re-illumination 
of  the  breast  of  a  white  horse,  with  a  brush,  at  the  end  of  a 
stick  five  feet  long,  luxuriously  dipped  in  a  common  house 
painters'  vessel  of  paint. 

There  are,  indeed,  some  kinds  of  knowledge  with  which  an 
artist  ought  to  be  thoroughly  furnished  ;  those,  for  instance, 
which  enable  him  to  express  himself:  for  this  knowledge 
relieves  instead  of  encumbering  his  mind,  and  permits  it  to 
attend  to  its  purposes  instead  of  wearying  itself  about  means. 
The  whole  mystery  of  manipulation  and  manufacture  should 
be  familiar  to  the  painter  from  a  child.  He  should  know  the 
chemistry  of  all  colors  and  materials  whatsoever,  and  should 
prepare  all  his  colors  himself,  in  a  little  laboratory  of  his  own. 
Limiting  his  chemistry  to  this  one  subject,  the  amount  of 
practical  science  necessary  for  it,  and  such  accidental  dis- 
coveries as  might  fall  in  his  way  hi  the  course  of  his  Avork, 
of  better  colors  or  better  modes  of  preparing  them,  would  be 
an  infinite  refreshment  to  his  mind ;  a  minor  subject  of 
interest  to  which  it  might  turn  when  jaded  with  comfortless 
labor,  or  exhausted  with  feverish  invention,  and  yet  which 
would  never  interfere  with  its  higher  functions,  when  it  chose 
to  address  itself  to  them.  Even  a  considerable  amount  of 
manual  labor,  sturdy  color-grinding,  and  canvass-st retching, 
would  be  advantageous  ;  though  this  kind  of  work  ought  to  be 
in  great  part  done  by  pupils.  For  it  is  one  of  the  conditions 
of  perfect  knowledge  in  those  matters,  that  every  great  master 


PAINTING.  308 

should  have  a  certain  number  of  pupils,  to  whom  he  is  tc 
impart  all  the  knowledge  of  materials  and  means  which  he  him- 
self possesses,  as  soon  as  possible ;  so  that,  at  any  rate,  by  the 
time  they  are  fifteen  years  old,  they  may  know  all  that  he 
knows  himself  in  this  kind;  that  is  to  say,  all  that  the  world 
of  artists  know,  and -his  own  discoveries  besides,  and  so  never 
be  troubled  about  methods  any  more.  Not  that  the  knowledge 
even  of  his  own  particular  methods  is  to  be  of  purpose  confined 
to  himself  and  his  pupils,  but  that  necessarily  it  must  be  so  in 
some  degree ;  for  only  those  who  see  him  at  work  daily  can 
understand  his  small  and  multitudinous  ways  of  practice. 
These  cannot  verbally  be  explained  to  everybody,  nor  is  it 
needful  that  they  should,  only  let  them  be  concealed  from  no- 
body who  cares  to  see  them ;  in  which  case,  of  course,  his 
attendant  scholars  will  knowr  them  best. 

The  art  of  the  thirteenth  century  is  the  foundation  of  all 
art, — nor  merely  the  foundation,  but  the  root  of  it ;  that  is  to 
say,  succeeding  art  is  not  merely  built  upon  it,  but  was  all 
comprehended  in  it,  and  is  developed  out  of  it.  Passing  thia 
great  century,  we  find  three  successive  'branches  developed 
from  it,  in  eauh  of  the  three  following  centuries.  The  four- 
teenth century  is  pre-eminently  the  age  of  Thought^Q  fifteenth 
the  age  of  Drawing,  and  the  sixteenth  the  age  of  Painting. 

Observe,  first,  the  fourteenth  century  is  pre-eminently  the 
age  of  thought.  It  begins  with  the  first  words  of  the  poem 
of  Dante  ; — and  all  the  great  pictorial  poems — the  mighty 
series  of  works  in  which  everything  is  done  to  relate,  but 
nothing  to  imitate — belong  to  this  century.  I  should  only 
confuse  you  by  giving  you  the  names  of  marvellous  artists, 
most  of  them  little  familiar  to  British  ears,  who  adorned  thia 
century  in  Italy  ;  but  you  will  easily  remember  it  as  the  age 
of  Dante  and  Giotto—  the  age  of » Thought. 


304  PAINTING. 

The  men  of  the  succeeding  century  (the  fifteenth),  felt  thil 
they  could  not  rival  their  predecessors  in  invention,  but  might 
excel  them  in  execution.  Original  thoughts  belonging  to  this 
century  are  comparatively  rare ;  even  Raphael  and  Michael 
Angelo  themselves  borrowed  all  their  principal  ideas  and 
plans  of  pictures  from  their  predecessors  ;  but  they  executed 
them  with  a  precision  up  to  that  time  unseen.  You  must  under- 
stand by  the  word  "  drawing,"  the  perfect  rendering  of  forms, 
whether  in  sculpture  or  painting ;  and  then  remember  the 
fifteenth  century  as  the  age  of  Leonardo,  Michael  Angelo, 
Lorenzo  Ghiberti,  and  Raphael, — pre-eminently  the  age  of 
Drawing. 

The  sixteenth  century  produced  the  four  graatest  Painters, 
that  is  to  say,  managers  of  color,  that  the  world  has  seen ; 
namely,  Tintoret,  Paul  Veronese,  Titian,  ar  d  Correggio.  I 
need  not  say  more  to  justify  my  calling  it  the  age  of  Painting 


Port  6. 
O  E  T  R  Y 


"  Poetry  is  the  expression  of  the  beautiful — by  words — the  beautiful  of  the 
outer  and  the  inner  world ;  whatever  is  delectable  to  the  eye  or  the  ear 
the  every  sense  of  the  body  and  of  the  soul — it  presides  over  veras  dukedinet 
rerum.  It  implies  at  once  a  vision  and  a  faculty,  a  gift  and  an  art.  A 
thought  may  be  poetical,  and  yet  not  poetry ;  it  may  be  a  solution  containing 
the  poetical  element,  but  waiting  and  wanting  the  precipitation  of  it,  the 
crystallization  of  it." — North  British  Review 


Part  6. 

POETRY. 

I  AM  writing  at  a  window  which  commands  a  view  of  the 
head  of  the  Lake  of  Geneva ;  and  as  I  look  up  from  my  paper, 
I  see,  beyond  it,  a  blue  breadth  of  softly  moving  water,  and 
the  outline  of  the  mountains  above  Chillon,  bathed  in  morn- 
ing mist.  The  first  verses  which  naturally  come  into  my 
mind  are — 

"  A  thousand  feet  in  depth  below 
The  massy  waters  meet  and  flow; 
So  far  the  fathom  line  was  sent 
From  Chillon's  snow-white  battlement." 

Let  us  see  in  what  manner  this  poetical  statement  is  distin- 
guished from  a  historical  one. 

It  is  distinguished  from  a  truly  historical  statement,  first,  hi 
being  simply  false.  The  water  under  the  castle  of  Chillon  is 
not  a  thousand  feet  deep,  nor  anything  like  it.*  Herein,  cer- 
tainly, these  lines  fulfil  Reynolds's  first  requirement  in  poetry, 
*'  that  it  should  b«  inattentive  to  literal  truth  and  minute 
exactness  in  detail."  In  order,  however,  to  make  our  com- 
parison more  closely  in  other  points,  let  us  assume  that  what 

*  'MM.  Mallet  et  Pictet,  se  trouvant  sur  le  lac  aupres  du  chateau  de 
Chillon,  le  6  Aout,  1774,  plongerent  a  la  profondeur  de  312  pieds  de  un 
thermometre,"  &c. — SAUSSURE,  Voyages  dans  les  Alpes,  chap.  ii.  §  33.  It 
appeai-s  from  the  next  paragraph,  that  the  thermometer  was  "au  fond  du  lac." 


308  POETRY. 

is  stated  is  indeed  a  fact,  and  that  it  was  to  be  recorded,  first 
historically,  and  then  poetically. 

Historically  stating  it,  then,  we  should  say :  "  The  lake  was 
Bounded  from  the  walls  of  the  castle  of  Chillon,  and  found  to 
be  a  thousand  feet  deep." 

Now,  if  Reynolds  be  right  in  his  idea  of  the  difference 
between  history  and  poetry,  we  shah1  find  that  Byron  leaves  out 
of  this  statement  certain  unnecessary  details,  and  retains  only 
the  invariable, — that  is  to  say,  the  points  which  the  Lake  of 
Geneva  and  castle  of  Chillou  have  in  common  with  ah1  other 
lakes  and  castles. 

Let  us  hear,  therefore. 

"  A  thousand  feet  in  depth  below." 

"  Below  ?"  Here  is,  at  all  events,  a  word  added  (instead 
of  anything  being  taken  away);  invariable,  certainly  in  the 
case  of  lakes,  but  not  absolutely  necessary. 

"  The  massy  waters  meet  and  8ow." 

"  Massy !"  why  massy?  Because  deep  water  is  heavy.  The 
word  is  a  good  word,  but  it  is  assuredly  an  added  detail,  and 
expresses  a  character,  not  which  the  Lake  of  Geneva  has  in 
common  with  all  other  lakes,  but  which  it  has  in  distinction 
from  those  which  are  narrow  or  shallow. 

"  Meet  and  flow."  Why  meet  and  flow  ?  Partly  to  make 
up  a  rhyme ;  partly  to  tell  us  that  the  waters  are  forceful  as 
well  as  massy,  and  changeful  as  well  as  deep.  Observe,  a 
farther  addition  of  details,  and  of  details  more  or  less  peculiar 
to  the  spot,  or,  according  to  Reynolds's  definition,  of  "heavy 
matter,  retarding  the  progress  of  the  imagination." 

"  So  far  the  fathom  line  was  sent" 
Why  fathom  line  ?     All  lines  for  sounding  are  not  fathom 


POETRY.  809 

lines.  If  the  lake  was  ever  sounded  from  Chil'on,  it  was 
probably  sounded  in  metres,  not  fathoms.  This  is  an  addition 
of  another  particular  detail,  in  which  the  only  compliance 
with  Reynolds's  requirement  is,  that  there  is  some  chance  ot 
its  being  an  inaccurate  one. 

"  From  Chillon's  snow-white  battlement." 

"Why  snow-white?  Because  castle  battlements  are  not 
usually  snow-white.  This  is  another  added  detail,  and  a 
detail  quite  peculiar  to  Chillon,  and  therefore  exactly  the  most 
striking  word  in  the  whole  passage. 

"Battlement!"  why  battlement?  Because  all  walls  have 
not  battlements,  and  the  addition  of  the  term  marks  the  castle 
to  be  not  merely  a  prison,  but  a  fortress. 

This  is  a  curious  result.  'Instead  of  finding,  as  we  expected, 
the  poetry  distinguished  from  the  history  by  the  omission  of 
details,  we  find  it  consist  entirely  in  the  addition  of  details ; 
and  instead  of  being  characterized  by  regard  only  of  the  inva- 
riable, we  find  its  whole  power  to  consist  in  the  clear  expres- 
sion of  what  is  singular  and  particular ! 

The  reader  may  pursue  the  investigation  for  himself  in 
other  instances.  He  will  find  in  every  case  that«a  poetical  is 
distinguished  from  a  merely  historical  statement,  not  by  being 
more  vague,  but  more  specific,  and  it  might,  therefore,  at 
first  appear  that  our  author's  comparison  should  be  simply 
reversed,  and  that  the  Dutch  School  should  be  called  poetical, 
and  the  Italian  historical.  But  the  term  poetical  does  not 
appear  very  applicable  to  the  generality  of  Dutch  painting ; 
and  a  little  reflection  will  show  us,  that  if  the  Italians  repre- 
sent only  the  invariable,  they  cannot  be  properly  compared 
even  to  historians.  For  that  which  is  incapable  of  change  has 
no  history,  and  records  which  state  only  the  invariable  need 
not  be  written,  and  could  not  be  read. 


310  POETRY. 

It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  our  author  has  entangled 
himself  in  some  grave  fallacy,  by  introducing  this  idea,  of  in  va- 
riableness as  forming  a  distinction  between  poetical  and  his- 
torical art.  "We  must  not  go  on  with  our  inquiry  until  we 
have  settled  satisfactorily  the  question  already  suggested  to 
us,  in  what  the  essence  of  poetical  treatment  really  consists. 
For  though,  as  we  have  seen,  it  certainly  involves  the  addi- 
tion of  specific  details,  it  cannot  be  simply  that  addition  which 
turns  the  history  into  poetry.  For  it  is  perfectly  possible  to 
add  any  number  of  details  to  a  historical  statement,  and  to 
make  it  more  prosaic  with  every  added  word.  As,  for 
instance,  "  The  lake  was  sounded  out  of  a  flat-bottomed  boat, 
near  the  crab  tree  at  the  comer  of  the  kitchen-garden,  and 
was  found  to  be  a  thousand  feet  nine  inches  deep,  with  a 
muddy  bottom."  It  thus  appears  that  it  is  not  the  multipli- 
cation of  details  which  constitutes  poetry ;  nor  their  subtrac- 
tion which  constitutes  history;  but  that  there  must  be 
something  either  in  the  nature  of  the  details  themselves,  or 
the  method  of  using  them,  which  invests  them  with  poetical 
power  or  historical  propriety. 

It  seems  to  me,  and  may  seem  to  the  reader,  strange  that 
we  should'  need  to  ask  the  question,  ""What  is  poetry?" 
Here  is  a  word  we  have  been  using  all  our  lives,  and,  I  sup- 
pose, with  a  very  distinct  idea  attached  to  it ;  and  when  I  am 
now  called  upon  to  give  a  definition  of  this  idea,  I  find  myself 
•at  a  pause.  What  is  more  singular,  I  do  not  at  present  recol- 
lect hearing  the  question  often  asked,  though  surely  it  is  a 
very  natural  one ;  and  I  never  recollect  hearing  it  answered, 
or  even  attempted  to  be  answered.  In  general,  people  shelter 
themselves  under  metaphors,  and  while  we  hear  poetry 
described  as  an  utterance  of  the  soul,  an  effusion  of  Divinity 
or  voice  of  nature,  or  in  other  terms  equally  elevated  and 
obscure,  we  never  attain  anything  like  a  definite  explana 


POETRY.  311 

tion  of  the   character   wkfch   actually  distinguishes  it   from 
prose. 

I  come,  after  some  embarrassment,  to  the  conclusion,  that 
poetry  is  "the  suggestion,  by  the  imagination,  of  noble 
grounds  for  the  noble  emotion  s."  I  mean,  by  the  noble  emo- 
tions, those  four  principal  secret  passions — Love,  Veneration, 
o  Admiration,  and  Joy  (this  latter  especially,  if  unselfish) ;  and 
their  opposites — Hatred,  Indigm  '-tion  (or  Scorn),  Horror,  and 
Grief, — this  last,  when  unselfish,  becoming  Compassion.  These 
passions  in  their  various  combinations  constitute  what  is  called 
"  poetical  feeling,"  when  they  are  felt  on  noble  grounds,  that 
is,  on  great  and  true  grounds.  Indignation,  for  instance,  is  a 
poetical  feeling,  if  excited  by  serious  injury;  but  it  is  not  a 
poetical  feeling  if  entertained  on  bein^  cheated  out  of  a  small 
sum  of  money.  It  is  very  possible  the  manner  of  the  cheat 
may  have  been  such  as  to  justify  considerable  indignation; 
but  the  feeling  is  nevertheless  not  poetical,  unless  the  grounds 
of  it  be  large  as  well  as  just.  In  like  manner,  energetic  admi- 
ration may  be  excited  in  certain  minds  by  a  display  of  fire- 
works, or  a  street  of  handsome  shops ;  b  ut  the  feeling  is  not 
poetical,  because  the  grounds  of  it  are  fi'alse,  and  therefore 
ignoble.  There  is  in  reality  nothing  to  deserve  admiration 
either  in  the  firing  of  packets  of  gunpowder,  or  in  the  display 
of  the  stocks  of  warehouses.  But  admiratio  n  excited  by  the 
budding  of  a  flower  is  a  poetical  feeling,  becavise  it  is  impossi- 
ble that  this  manifestation  of  spiritual  power  a,ud  vital  beauty 
can  ever  be  enough  admired. 

Further,  it  is  necessary  to  the  existence  of  po  etry  that  the 
grounds  of  these  feelings  should  be  furnished by  $he  imagina- 
tion. Poetical  feeling,  that  is  to  say,  mere  noble*  emotion,  is 
not  poetry.  It  is  happily  inherent  in  all  human  nature  deserv- 
ing the  name,  and  is  found  often  to  be  purest  iit  the  least 
sophisticated.  But  the  power  of  assembling,  by  ti.w  help  of 


312  POETRY. 

the  imagination,  such  images  as  will  excite  these  feelings,  is 
the  power  of  the  poet  or  literally  of  the  "  Maker."* 

*  Take,  for  instance,  the  beautiful  stanza  in  the  "  Affliction  of  Margaret  n 

"  I  look  for  ghosts,  but  none  will  force 
Their  way  to  me.     'Tis  falsely  said 
That  ever  there  was  intercourse 
Between  the  living  and  the  dead ; 

For,  surely  then,  I  should  have  sight 
Of  him  I  wait  !br,  day  and  night, 
With  love  and  longing  infinite." 

This  we  call  Poetry,  because  it  is  invented  or  mode  by  the  writer,  entering 
into  the  mind  of  a  supposed  person.  Next,  take  an  instance  of  the  actual 
feeling  truly  experienced  and  simply  expressed  by  a  real  person. 

"  Nothing  surprised  me  moro  than  a  woman  of  Argcnticre.  whose  cottage 
1  went  into  to  ask  for  milk,  as  1  came  down  from  the  glacier  of  Argentiure,  in 
the  month  of  March,  1764.  An  epidemic  dysentery  had  prevailed  in  the 
village,  and,  a  few  months  before,  had  taken  away  from  her  her  father,  her 
husband,  and  her  brothers,  so  that  she  was  left  alone,  with  three  children  in 
the  cradle.  Her  face  had  something  noble  in  it,  and  its  expression  bore  the 
seal  of  a  calm  and  profouii'i  sorrow.  After  having  given  me  milk,  she  askea 
me  whence  I  came,  and  what  I  came  there  to  do,  so  early  in  the  year.  "U'hen 
she  knew  that  I  was  of  Geneva,  she  said  to  me,  'she  could  not  believe  that 
all  Protestants  were  lost'  souls ;  that  there  were  many  honest  people  among 
us,  and  that  God  was  too  good  and  too  great  to  condemn  all  without  distinc- 
tion.' Then,  after  a  moment  of  reflection,  she  added,  in  shaking  her  li-ead, 
'But,  that  which  is  very  strange,  is  that  of  so  many  who  have  gone  away, 
none  have  ever  returned.  I,'  she  added,  with  an  expression  of  grief,  •  who 
have  so  mourned  my  husband  and  my  brothers,  who  have  never  ceased  to 
llink  of  them,  wht>  every  night  conjure  them  with  beseechings  to  tell  me 
where  they  are,  and  in  what  state  they  are !  Ah,  surely,  if  they  lived  any- 
where, they  would  not  leave  me  thus!  But,  perhaps,'  she  added,  '  I  am  not 
worthy  of  this  kindness;  perhaps  the  pure  and  innocont  spirits  of  these  ctJa- 
ren.'  and  she  looked  at  the  cradle,  'may  have  their  presence,  and  tl.o  joy 
which  is  denied  to  me.' " — SAUSSURE,  Voyages  dans  les  Alpes,  chap.  xxiv. 

This  we  do  not  call  Poetry,  merely  because  it  is  not  invented,  but  tLf  trw 
utterance  of  a  real  person. 


POETRY.  318 

Now  this  power  of  exciting  the  emotions  depends,  of  course, 
oil  the  richness  of  the  imagination,  and  on  its  choice  of  those 
images  which,  in  combination,  will  be  most  effective,  or,  for 
the  particular  work  to  be  done,  most  fit.  And  it  is  altogether 
impossible  for  a  writer  not  endowed  with  invention  to  conceive 
what  tools  a  true  poet  will  make  use  of,  or  in  what  way  he 
will  apply  them,  or  what  unexpected  results  he  will  bring  out 
by  them ;  so  that  it  is  vain  to  say  that  the  details  of  poetry 
ought  to  possess,  or  ever  do  possess,  any  definite  character 
Generally  speaking,  poetry  runs  into  liner  and  more  delicate 
details  than  prose ;  but  the  details  are  not  poetical  because  they 
are  more  delicate,  but  because  they  are  employed  so  as  to  bring 
out  an  affecting  result.  For  instance,  no  one  but  a  true  poet 
would  have  thought  of  exciting  our  pity  for  a  bereaved  father 
by  describing  his  way  of  locking  the  door  of  his  house : 

"  Perhaps  to  himself,  at  that  moment  ho  said. 
The  key  I  must  take,  for  my  Ellen  is  dead ; 
But  of  this  in  my  ears  not  a  word  did  lie  speak, 
And  lie  went  to  the  chase  with  a  tear  on  his  cheek." 

In  like  manner,  in  painting,  it  is  altogether  impossible  to 
say  beforehand  what  details  a  great  painter  may  make  poeti- 
cal by  his  use  of  them  to  excite  noble  emotions:  and  we  shall, 
therefore,  find  presently  that  a  painting  is  to  be  classed  in  the 
great  or  inferior  schools,  not  according  to  the  kind  of  details 
winch  it  represents,  but  according  to  the  uses  for  which  it 
employs  them. 

It  is  only  farther  to  be  noticed,  that  infinite  confusion  has 
been  introduced  into  this  subject  by  the  careless  and  illogical 
custom  of  opposing  painting  to  poetry,  instead  of  regarding 
poetry  as  consisting  in  a  noble  use,  whether  of  colors  or  words. 
Painting  is  properly  to  be  opposed  to  speaking  or  writing,  but 
not  to  poetry.  Both  painting  and  speaking  are  methods  of 

.U 


314  POETBY. 

expression.  Poetry  is  the  employment  of  either  for  the 
noblest  purposes. 

The  imagination  has  three  totally  distinct  functions.  It 
combines,  and  by  combination  creates  new  forms;  but  the 
secret  principle  of  this  combination  has  not  been  shown  by  the 
analysts.  Again,  it  treats,  or  regards,  both  the  simple  images 
and  its  own  combinations  in  peculiar  ways ;  and  thirdly,  it 
penetrates,  analyzes,  and  reaches  truths  by  no  other  faculty 
discoverable. 

The  essential  characters  of  composition,  properly  so  called, 
are  these.  The  mind  which  desires  the  new  feature  summons 
up  before  it  those  images  which  it  supposes  to  be  of  the  kind 
wanted,  of  these  it  takes  the  one  which  it  supposes  to  be  fittest, 
and  tries  it :  if  it  will  not  answer,  it  tries  another,  until  it  has 
obtained  such  an  association  as  pleases  it. 

In  this  operation,  if  it  be  of  little  sensibility,  it  regards  only 
the  absolute  beauty  or  value  of  the  images  brought  before  it ; 
and  takes  that  or  those  which  it  thinks  fairest  or  most  interest- 
ing, without  any  regard  to  their  sympathy  with  those  ibr  whose 
company  they  are  destined. 

In  composition  the  mind  can  only  take  cognizance  of  likeness 
or  dissimilarity,  or  of  abstract  beauty  among  the  ideas  it  brings 
together.  But  neither  likeness  nor  dissimilarity  secures  har- 
mony. We  saw  in  the  chapter  on  unity  that  '.ikeness  destroyed 
harmony  or  unity  of  membership,  and  that  difference  did  not 
necessarily  secure  it,  but  only  that  particular  imperfection  in 
each  of  the  harmonizing  parts  which  can  only  be  supplied  by 
its  fellow  part.  If,  therefore,  the  combination  made  is  to  be 
harmonious,  the  artist  must  induce  in  each  of  its  component 
parts  (suppose  two  only,  for  simplicity's  sake,)  such  imperfection 
as  that  the  other  shall  put  it  right.  If  one  of  them  be  perfect 
by  itself,  the  other  will  be  an  excrescence.  Both  must  be 
faulty  when  separate,  and  each  corrected  by  the  presence  of 


POETRY.  315 

the  other.  If  he  can  accomplish  this,  the  res.  ilt  will  be  beautiful  ; 
it  will  be  a  whole,  an  organized  body  with  dependent  members; 
— he  is  an  inventor.  If  not,  let  his  separate  features  be  as 
beautiful,  as  apposite,  or  as  resemblant  as  they  may,  they  form 
no  whole.  They  are  two  members  glued  together. 

A  powerfully  imaginative  mind  seizes  and  combines  at  the 
same  instant,  not  only  two,  but  all  the  important  ideas  of  its 
poem  or  picture,  and  while  it  works  with  any  one  of  them,  it  is  at 
the  same  instant  working  with  and  modifying  all  in  their  rela- 
tions to  it,  never  losing  sight  of  their  bearings  on  each  other  ; 
as  the  motion  of  a  snake's  body  goes  through  all  parts  at  once, 
and  its  volition  acts  at  the  same  instant  in  coils  that  go  contrary 
ways. 

This  faculty  is  indeed  something  that  looks  as  if  man  were 
made  after  the  image  of  God.  It  is  inconceivable,  admirable, 
altogther  divine. 

There  is  however,  a  limit  to  the  power  of  all  human  imagin- 
ation. When  the  relations  to  be  observed  are  absolutely 
necessary,  and  highly  complicated,  the  mind  cannot  grasp  them, 
and  the  esult  is  a  total  deprivation  of  all  power  of  imagination 
associative  in  such  matter.  For  this  reason,  no  human  mind 
has  ever  conceived  a  new  animal. 

We  have  thus  far  been  defining  that  combining  operation  of 
the  imagination  which  appears  to  be  in  a  sort  mechanical ;  we 
must  now  examine  its  dealings  with  its  separate  conceptions. 

Its  function  and  gift  are  the  getting  at  the  root,  its  nature 
and  dignity  depend  on  its  holding  things  always  by  the  heart. 
Take  its  hand  from  off  the  beating  of  that,  and  it  will  prophesy 
no  longer;  it  looks  not  in  the  eyes,  it  judges  not  by  the  voice, 
it  describes  not  by  outward  features,  all  that  it  affirms,  judges, 
or  describes,  it  affirms  from  within. 

It  drinks  the  very  vital  sap  of  that  it  deals  with :  once  there 
it  is  at  liberty  to  throw  up  what  new  shoots  it  will,  so  always 


316  POETRY. 

that  the  true  juice  and  sap  be  in  them,  and  to  prune  and  twist 
them  at  its  pleasure,  and  bring  them  to  fairer  fruit  than  grew 
on  the  old  tree. 

It  may  seem  to  the  reader  that  I  am  incorrect  in  calling  this 
penetrating,  possession-taking  faculty,  imagination.  Be  it  so, 
the  name  is  of  little  consequence ;  the  faculty  itself,  called  by 
what  name  we  will,  I  insist  upon  as  the  highest  intellectual 
power  of  man.  There  is  no  reasoning  in  it,  it  works  not  by 
algebra,  nor  by  integral  calculus,  it  is  a  piercing,  Pholas-like 
mind's  tongue  that  Avorks  and  tastes  into  the  very  rock  heart, 
no  matter  what  be  the  subject  submitted  to  it,  substance  or 
spirit,  all  is  alike,  divided  asunder,  joint  and  marrow,  whatever 
utmost  truth,  life,  principle,  it  has,  laid  bare,  and  that  which  hag 
no  truth,  life,  nor  principle,  dissipated  into  its  original  smoke  at 
a  touch.  The  whispers  at  men's  ears  it  lifts  into  visible  angels. 
Vials  that  have  lain  sealed  in  the  deep  sea  a  thousand  years  it 
unseals,  and  brings  out  of  them  Genii. 

Every  great  conception  of  poet  or  painter  is  held  and  treated 
by  this  faculty.  Every  character  that  is  so  much  as  touched  by 
men  like  ^Eschylus,  Homer,  Dante,  or  Shakspeare,  is  by  them 
held  by  the  heart ;  and  every  circumstance  or  sentence  of  their 
being,  speaking,  or  seeming,  is  seized  by  process  from  within, 
and  is  referred  to  that  inner  secret  spring  of  which  the  hold  ig 
never  lost  for  an  instant ;  so  that  every  sentence,  as  it  has  been 
thought  out  from  the  heart,  opens  for  us  a  way  down  to  the 
heart,  leads  us  to  the  centre,  and  then  leaves  us  to  gather 
\\hat  more  we  may ;  it  is  the  open  sesame  of  a  huge,  obscure, 
endless  cave,  with  inexhaustible  treasure  of  pure  gold  scattered 
in  it;  the  wandering  about  and  gathering  the  pieces  may  be  left 
to  any  of  us,  all  can  accomplish  that ;  but  the  first  opening  of 
that  invisible  door  in  the  rock  is  of  the  imagination  only. 

I  believe  it  will  be  found  that  the  entirely  unimaginative 
Qiiud  sees  nothing  of  the  object  it  has  to  dwell  upon  or  describe, 


POETRY.  31 1 

and  is  therefoie  utterly  unable,  as  it  is  blind  itself,  to  set  any 
thing  before  the  eyes  of  the  reader 

The  fancy  sees  the  outside,  and  is  able  to  give  a  portrait  ot 
the  outside,  clear,  brilliant,  and  full  of  detail. 

The  imagination  sees  the  heart  and  inner  nature,  and  makes 
them  felt,  but  is  often  obscure,  mysterious,  and  interrupted,  in 
its  giving  of  outer  detail. 

Take  an  instance.  A  writer  with  neither  imagination  not 
fancy,  describing  a  fair  lip,  does  not  see  it,  but  thinks  about  it, 
and  about  what  is  said  of  it,  and  calls  it  well-turned,  or  rosy, 
or  delicate,  or  lovely,  or  afflicts  us  with  some  other  quenching 
and  chilling  epithet.  Now  hear  fancy  speak, — 

"  Her  lips  were  red.  and  one  was  thin, 
Compared  with  that  was  next  her  chin, 
Some  bee  had  stung  it  newly." 

The  real,  red,  bright  being  of  the  lip  is  there  in  a  moment. 
But  it  is  all  outside ;  no  expression  yet,  no  mind.  Let  us  go  a 
step  farther  with  Warner,  of  iair  Rosamond  struck  by  Eleanor. 

"  With  that  she  dashed  her  on  the  lips 
So  dyed  double  red ; 
Hard  was  the  heart  that  gave  the  blow, 
Soft  were  those  lips  that  bled." 

The  tenderness  of  mind  begins  to  mingle  with  the  outside 
color,  the  imagination  is  seen  in  its  awakening.  Next  Shelley, — 

"Lamp  of  life,  thy  lips  are  burning 
Through  the  veil  that  seems  to  hide  them, 
As  the  radiant  lines  of  morning 
Through  thin  clouds,  ere  they  divide  them." 

In  Milton  it  happens,  I  think,  generally,  and  hi  the  case  before 
us  most  certainly,  that  the  imagination  is  mixed  and  broken 
with  fancy,  and  so  the  strength  of  the  imagery  is  part  of  iron 
and  part  of  clay. 


818  POETRY. 

"  Bring  the  rathe  primrose,  that  forsaken  dies  (Imagination) 
The  tufted  crow-toe,  and  pale  jessamine   (Nugatory) 
The  white  pink,  and  the  pansy  freaked  with  jet —  (Fancy) 
The  glowing  violet,   (Imagination) 

The  musk  rose,  and  the  well-attired  woodbine,  (Fancy,  vuJgai) 
With  cowslips  wan,  that  hang  the  pensive  head,  (Imagination) 
And  every  flower  that  sad  embroidery  wears."  (Mixed) 

Fancy,  as  she  stays  at  the  externals,  can  never  feel.  She  is 
one  of  the  hardest  hearted  of  the  intellectual  faculties,  or  rather 
one  of  the  most  purely  and  simply  intellectual.  She  cannot  bo 
made  serious,  no  edge  tools  but  she  will  play  with ;  whereas 
the  imagination  is  in  all  things  the  reverse.  She  cannot  be  but 
serious;  she  sees  too  far,  too  darkly,  too  solemnly,  too  earnestly, 
ever  to  smile.  There  is  something  in  the  heart  of  everything, 
if  we  can  reach  it,  that  we  shall  not  be  inclined  to  laugh  at.  The 
tivygdpov  yeXatfpa  of  the  sea  is  on  its  surface,  not  in  the  deep. 

Now,  observe,  while,  as  it  penetrates  into  the  nature  of 
things,  the  imagination  is  preeminently  a  beholder  of  things  as 
they  are,  it  is,  in  its  creative  function,  an  eminent  beholder  of 
things  when  and  where  they  are  NOT;  a  seer,  that  is,  in  the 
prophetic  sense,  calling  "  the  things  that  are  not  as  though 
they  were,"  and  for  ever  delighting  to  dwell  on  that  which  is 
not  tangibly  present.  And  its  great  function  being  the  calling 
forth,  or  back,  that  which  is  not  visible  to  bodily  sense,  it  has 
of  course  been  made  to  take  delight  in  the  fulfilment  of  its 
proper  function,  and  preeminently  to  enjoy,  and  spend  its 
energy,  on  tilings  past  and  future,  or  out  of  sight,  rather  than 
things  present,  or  in  sight.  So  that  if  the  imagination  is  to  be 
called  to  take  delight  in  any  object,  it  will  not  be  always  well, 
if  we  can  help  it,  to  put  the  real  object  there,  before  it.  The 
imagination  would  on  the  whole  rather  have  it  not  there ; — the 
reality  and  substance  are  rather  in  the  imagination's  way ;  it 
would  think  a  good  deal  more  of  the  thing  if  it  could  not  see 


POETRY.  319 

it.  Hence,  that  strange  and  sometimes  fatal  charm,  which 
there  is  in  all  things  as  long  as  we  wait  for  them,  and  the 
moment  we  have  lost  them ;  but  which  fades  while  we  possess 
them ; — that  sweet  bloom  of  all  that  is  far  away,  which  perishes 
under  our  touch.  Yet  the  feeling  of  this  is  not  a  weakness 
it  is  one  of  the  most  glorious  gifts  of  the  human  mind,  making 
the  whole  infinite  future,  and  imperishable  past,  a  richer  inhe- 
ritance, if  faithfully  inherited,  than  the  changeful,  frail,  fleeting 
present ;  it  is  also  one  of  the  many  witnesses  in  us  to  the  truth 
that  these  present  and  tangible  things  are  not  meant  to  satisfy 
us.  The  instinct  become?  a  weakness  only  when  it  is  weakly 
indulged,  and  when  the  faculty  which  was  intended  by  God  to 
give  back  to  us  what  we  have  lost,  and  gild  for  us  what  is  to 
come,  is  so  perverted  as  only  to  darken  what  we  possess.  But, 
perverted  or  pure,  the  instinct  itself  is  everlasting,  and  the 
substantial  presence  even  of  the  things  which  we  love  the  best, 
will  inevitably  and  for  ever  be  found  wanting  in  one  strange 
and  lender  charm,  which  belonged  to  the  dreams  of  them. 

Greatness  in  art  (as  assuredly  in  all  other  things,  but  more 
distinctly  in  this  than  in  most  of  them,)is  not  a  teachable  nor 
gainabie  thing,  but  the  expression  of  the  mind  of  a  God-made 
f/reat  man  ;  that  teach,  or  pi-each,  or  labor  as  you  will,  ever- 
lasting difference  is  set  between  one  man's  capacity  and 
another's ;  and  that  this  God-given  supremacy  is  the  priceless 
thing,  always  just  as  rare  in  the  world  at  one  time  as  another. 
What  you  can  manufacture,  or  communicate,  you  can  lower 
the  price  of,  but  this  mental  supremacy  is  incommunicable , 
you  will  never  multiply  its  quantity,  nor  lower  its  price  ;  and 
nearly  the  best  thing  that  men  can  generally  do  is  to  set  them- 
selves, not  to  the  attainment,  but  the  discovery  of  this ;  learn- 
ing to  know  gold,  when  we  see  it,  from  iron-glance,  and  dia- 
monds from  flint-sand,  being  for  most  of  us  a  more  profitable 
employment  than  trying  to  make  diamonds  out  of  our  own 


820  POETEY. 

charcoal.  And  for  this  God-made  supremacy,  I  general. y  have 
used,  and  shall  continue  to  use,  the  word  Inspiration,  not  care 
lessly  nor  lightly,  but  in  all  logical  calmness  and  perfect  ivve- 
rence. 

There  is  reciprocal  action  between  the  intensity  of  moral 
feeling  and  the  power  of  imagination ;  for,  on  the  one  hand, 
those  who  have  keenest  sympathy  are  those  who  look  closest, 
and  pierce  deepest,  and  hold  securest ;  and,  on  the  other, 
those  who  have  so  pierced  and  seen  the  melancholy  deeps  of 
things,  are  filled  with  the  most  intense  passffm  and  gentleness 
of  sympathy.  Hence,  I  suppose  that  the  powers  of  the 
imagination  may  always  be  tested  by  accompanying  tender- 
ness of  emotion,  and  thus,  (as  Byron  said,)  there  is  no  tender- 
ness like  Dante's,  neither  any  intensity  nor  seriousness  like 
his,  such  seriousness  that  it  is  incapable  of  perceiving  that 
which  is  commonplace  or  ridiculous,  but  fuses  all  down  into 
its  white-hot  fire.  All  egotism,  and  selfish  care,  or  regard, 
are  in  proportion  to  their  constancy,  destructive  of  imagina- 
tion ;  whose  play  and  power  depend  altogether  on  our  being 
able  to  forget  ourselves  and  enter  like  possessing  spirits  into 
the  bodies  of  things  about  us. 

Again,  as  the  life  of  imagination  is  in  the  discovering  of 
truth,  it  is  clear  it  can  have  no  respect  for  sayings  or  opinions : 
knowing  in  itself  when  it  has  invented  truly — restless  and  tor- 
mented except  when  it  has  this  knowledge,  its  sense  of  success 
or  failure  is  too  acute  to  be  affected  by  praise  or  blame.  Sym- 
pathy it  desires — but  can  do  without ;  of  opinions  it  is  regard- 
less, not  in  pride,  but  because  it  has  no  vanity,  and  is  conscious 
of  a  rule  of  action  and  object  of  aim  in  which  it  cannot  be  mis- 
taken ;  partly,  also,  in  pure  energy  of  de-sire  and  longing  to  do 
and  to  invent  more  and  more,  which  suffer  it  not  to  suck  the 
sweetness  of  praise — unless  a  h'ttle,  with  the  end  of  the  rod  in 
its  hand,  and  without  pausing  in  its  march.  It  goes  straight 


POETRY.  821 

forward  up  the  hill ;  no  voices  nor  mutterings  can  turn  it  back, 
nor  petrify  it  from  its  purpose. 

The  imagination  must  be  fed  constantly  by  external  nature 
— after  the  illustrations  we  have  given,  this  may  seem  mere 
truism,  for  it  is  clear  that  to  the  exercise  of  the  penetrative 
faculty  a  subject  of  penetration  is  necessary;  but  I  note  it 
because  many  painters  of  powerful  mind  have  been  lost  to  the 
\vorld  by  their  suffering  the  restless  writhing  of  their  imagina- 
tion in  its  cage  to  take  place  of  its  healthy  and  exulting 
activity  in  the  fields  of  nature.  The  most  imaginative  men 
always  study  the  hardest,  and  are  the  most  thirsty  for  new 
knowledge.  Fancy  plays  like  a  squirrel  in  its  circular  prison, 
and  is  happy  ;  but  imagination  is  a  pilgrim  on  the  earth — and 
her  home  is  in  heaven.  Shut  her  from  the  fields  of  the  celes- 
tial mountains — bar  her  from  breathing  their  lofty,  sun-warmed 
air ;  and  we  may  as  well  turn  upon  her  the  last  bolt  of  the 
tower  of  famine,  and  give  the  keys  to  the  keeping  of  the 
wildest  surge  that  washes  Capraja  and  Gorgona. 

Witness  the  operation  of  the  imagination  in  Coleridge,  on 
one  of  the  most  trifling  objects  that  could  possibly  have  been 
submitted  to  its  action. 

"The  thin  blue  flame 

Lies  on  my  low-burnt  fire,  and  quivers  not : 
Only  that  film  which  fluttered  on  the  grate 
Still  flutters  there,  the  sole  unquiet  thing. 
Methinks  its  motion  in  this  hush  of  nature 
Gives  it  dim  sympathies  with  me,  who  live, 
Making  it  a  companionable  form, 
"Whose  puny  flaps  and  freaks  the  idling  spirit 
By  its  own  moods  interprets ;  everywhere 
Echo  or  mirror  seeking  of  itselfj 
Anil  makes  a  toy  of  thought." 

Observe  the  sweet  operation  of  fancy,  in  the  following  weD 

14* 


322  POETRY. 

known  passage  from  Scott,  where  both  her  beholding  aiid 
transforming  powers  are  seen  in  their  simplicity. 

'  The  rocky  summits — split  and  rent, 
Formed  turret,  dome,  or  battlement—- 
Or seemed  fantastically  set 
With  cupola  or  minaret. 
Nor  were  these  earth-born  castles  bare, 
Nor  lacked  they  many  a  banner  fair, 
For  from  their  shivered  brows  displayed, 
Far  o'er  th'  unfathomable  glade, 
All  twinkling  with  the  dew-drop  sheen, 
The  brier-rose  fell,  in  streamers  green, — 
And  creeping  shrubs  of  thousand  dyes 
Waved  in  the  west  wind's  summer  sighs." 

Compare  with  it  the  real  and  high  action  of  the  imagination 
on  the  same  matter  in  Wordsworth's  Yew  trees  (which  I  con- 
sider  the  most  vigorous  and  solemn  bit  of  forest  landscape 
ever  painted) : — 

"  Each  particular  trunk  a  growth 
Of  intertwisted  fibre?  serpentine, 
Up  coiling  and  iiiveterately  convolved, 
Nor  uninformed  with  P/umtasy,  and  looks 
That  threaten  the  pro/an&" 


THE   SUPERNATURAL. 


There  are  four  ways  in  which  beings  supernatural  may  be 
conceived  as  manifesting  themselves  to  human  sense.  The 
first,  by  external  types,  signs,  or  influences ;  as  God  to  Mosea 
ui  the  ilames  of  the  bush,  and  to  Elijah  in  the  voice  of  Moieb 


THE   SUPERNATURAL.  323 

The  second,  by  the  assuming  of  a  form  not  properly  belong 
ing  to  them ;  as  the  Holy  Spirit  of  that  of  a  Dove,  the  second 
person  of  the  Trinity  of  that  of  a  Lamb ;  and  so  such  manifes 
tations,  under  angelic  or  other  form,  of  the  first  person  of  the 
Trinity,  as  seem  to  have  been  made  to  Abraham,  Moses,  and 
Ezekiel. 

The  third,  by  the  manifestation  of  a  form  properly  belong- 
ing to  them,  but  not  necessarily  seen  ;  as  of  the  Risen  Christ 
to  his  disciples  when  the  doors  were  shut.  And  the  fourth, 
by  their  operation  on  the  human  form,  which  they  influence 
or  inspire,  as  in  the  shining  of  the  face  of  Moses. 

It  is  evident  that  in  all  these  cases,  wherever  there  is  form 
at  all,  it  is  the  form  of  some  creature  to  us  known.  It  is  no 
new  form  peculiar  to  spirit,  nor  can  it  be.  We  can  conceive 
of  none.  Our  inquiry  is  simply,  therefore,  by  what  modifica- 
tions those  creature  forms  to  us  known,  as  of  a  lamb,  a  bird, 
or  a  human  creature,  may  be  explained  as  signs  or  habitations 
#of  Divinity,  or  of  angelic  essence,  and  not  creatures  such  as 
they  seem. 

This  may  be  done  in  two  ways.  First,  by  effecting  some 
change  in  the  appearance  of  the  creature  inconsistent  with  its 
actual  nature,  as  by  giving  it  colossal  size,  or  unnatural  color, 
or  material,  as  of  gold,  or  silver,  or  flame,  instead  of  flesh,  or 
by  taking  away  its  property  of  matter  altogether,  and  form- 
ing it  of  light  or  shade,  or  in  an  intermediate  step,  of  cloud, 
or  vapor;  or  explaining  it  by  terrible  concomitant  circum- 
stances, as  of  wounds  in  the  body,  or  strange  lights  and 
seemings  round  about  it ;  or  by  joining  of  two  bodies  toge- 
ther as  in  angels'  wings.  Of  all  which  means  of  attaining 
supernatural  character  (which,  though  in  their  nature  ordinary 
and  vulgar,  are  yet  effective  and  very  glorious  in  mighty 
hands)  vte  have  already  seen  the  limits  in  speaking  of  the 
imagination. 


324  POETRY. 

But  the  second  means  of  obtaining  supernatural  character  is 
that  with  which  we  are  now  concerned,  namely,  retaining  the 
actual  form  in  its  full  and  material  presence,  and  without  aid 
from  any  external  interpretation  whatever,  to  raise  that  form 
by  mere  inherent  dignity  to  such  a  pitch  of  power  and 
iinpressiveness  as  cannot  but  assert  and  stamp  it  for  super- 
human. 

He  who  can  do  this  has  reached  the  last  pinnacle  and 
utmost  power  of  ideal,  or  any  other  art.  He  stands  in  no 
need,  thenceforward,  of  cloud,  nor  lightning,  nor  tempest,  nor 
terror  of  mystery.  His  sublime  is  independent  of  the 
elements.  It  is  of  that  which  shall  stand  when  they  shall  melt 
with  fervent  heat,  and  light  the  firmament  when  the  sun  is  as 
sackcloth  of  hair. 

The  Greek  could  not  conceive  a  spirit ;  he  could  do  nothing 
without  limbs ;.  his  god  is  a  finite  god,  talking,  pursuing,  and 
going  journeys ;  if  at  any  time  he  was  touched  with  a  true* 
feeling  of  the  unseen  powers  around  him,  it  was  in  the  field  of 
poised  battle,  for  there  is  something  in  the  near  coming  of  the 
shadow  of  death,  something  in  the  devoted  fulfilment  of 
mortal  duty,  that  reveals  the  real  God,  though  darkly ;  that 
pause  on  the  field  of  Plata?a  was  not  one  of  vain  superstition  ; 
the  two  white  figures  that  blazed  along  the  Delphic  plain, 
when  the  earthquake  and  the  fire  led  the  charge  from  Olym- 
pus, were  more  than  sunbeams  on  the  battle  dust ;  the  sacred 
cloud,  with  its  lance  light  and  triumph  singing,  that  went 
down  to  brood  over  the  masts  of  Salamis,  was  more  than 
morning  mist  among  the  olives:  and  yet  what  were  the 
Greek's  thoughts  of  his  god  of  battle  ?  No  spirit  power  was 
in  the  vision ;  it  was  a  being  of  clay  strength  and  human 
passion,  foul,  fierce,  and  changeful ;  of  penetrable  arms,  and 
vulnerable  flesh.  Gather  what  we  may  of  great,  from  pagan 


THE   SUPERNATURAL.  325 

chisel  or  pagan  dream,  and  set  it  beside  the  orderer  of  Chris- 
tian warfare,  Michael  the  Archangel:  not  Milton's  "with 
hostile  brow  and  visage  all  inflamed,"  not  even  Milton's  in 
kingly  treading  of  the  hills  of  Paradise,  not  Raffaelle's  with 
the  expanded  wings  and  brandished  spear,  but  Perugino'a 
with  his  triple  crest  of  traceless  plume  unshaken  in  heaven, 
his  hand  fallen  on  his  crossleted  sword,  the  truth  girdle  bind- 
ing his  undinted  armor ;  God  has  put  his  power  upon  him, 
resistless  radiance  is  on  his  limbs,  no  lines  are  there  of  earthly 
strength,  no  trace  on  the  divine  features  of  earthly  anger; 
tiustful  and  thoughtful,  fearless,  but  full  of  love,  incapable 
except  of  the  repose  of  eternal  conquest,  vessel  and  instru- 
ment of  Omnipotence,  filled  like  a  cloud  with  the  victor  light, 
the  dust  of  principalities  and  powers  beneath  his  feet,  the 
murmur  of  hell  against  him  heard  by  his  spiritual  ear  like  the 
winding  of  a  shell  on  the  far  off  sea-shore. 

It  is  vain  to  attempt  to  pursue  the  comparison;  the  two 
orders  of  art  have  in  them  nothing  common,  and  the  field  of 
sacred  history,  the  intent  and  scope  of  Christian  feeling,  are 
too  wide  and  exalted  to  admit  of  the  juxtaposition  of  any 
other  sphere  or  order  of  conception ;  they  embrace  all  other 
fields  like  the  dome  of  heaven.  With  what  comparison  shall 
we  compare  the  types  of  the  martyr  saints,  the  St.  Stephen  of 
Fra  Bartolomeo,  with  his  calm  forehead  crowned  by  the  stony 
diadem,  or  the  St.  Catherine  of  Raffaelle  looking  up  to  heaven 
in  the  dawn  of  the  eternal  day,  with  her  lips  parted  in  the 
i  esting  from  her  pain  ?  or  with  what  the  Madonnas  of 
Francia  and  Pinturicchio,  in  whom  the  hues  of  the  morning 
and  the  solemnity  of  eve,  the  gladness  in  accomplished  pro- 
mise, and  sorrow  of  the  sword-pierced  heart,  are  gathered 
into  one  human  lamp  of  ineffable  love?  or  with  what  the 
angel  chairs  of  Angelico,  with  the  flames  on  their  white  fore 
heads  waving  brighter  as  they  move,  and.  the  sparkles  stream 


326  POETRY. 

iiig  from  their  purple  wings  like  the  glitter  of  many  suns  upon 
a  sounding  sea,  listening,  in  the  pauses  of  alternate  song,  for 
the  prolonging  of  the  trumpet  blast,  and  the  answering  of 
psaltery  and  cymbal,  throughout  the  endless  deep  and  from 
all  the  star  shores  of  heaven  ? 

Bacon  and  Pascal  appear  to  be  men  naturally  very  similar  in 
their  temper  and  powers  of  mind.  One,  born  in  York  House, 
Strand,  of  courtly  parents,  educated  in  court  atmosphere,  and 
replying,  almost  as  soon  as  he  could  speak,  to  the  queen  asking 
how  old  he  was — "Two  years  younger  than  Your  Majesty's 
happy  reign  1" — has  the  world's  meanness  and  cunning 
engrafted  into  his  intellect,  and  remains  smooth,  serene,  unen- 
thusiastic,  and  in  some  degree  base,  even  with  all  his  sincere 
devotion  and  universal  wisdom ;  bearing,  to  the  end  of  lite,  the 
likeness  of  a  marble  palace  in  the  street  of  a  great  city,  fairly 
furnished  within,  and  bright  in  Avail  and  battlement,  yet  noi- 
some in  places  about  the  foundations.  The  other,  born  at 
Clermont,  in  Auvergne,  under  the  shadow  of  the  Puy  de  Dome, 
though  taken  to  Paris  at  eight  years  old,  retains  for  ever  the 
impress  of  his  birthplace;  pursuing  natural  philosophy  with 
the  same  zeal  as  Bacon,  he  returns  to  his  own  mountains  to 
put  himself  under  their  tutelage,  and  by  their  help  first  disco- 
vers the  great  relations  of  the  earth  and  the  air :  struck  at 
last  with  mortal  disease ;  gloomy,  enthusiastic,  and  supersti- 
tious, with  a  conscience  burning  like  lava,  and  inflexible  like 
iron,  the  clouds  gather  about  the  majesty  of  him,  fold  after 
fold ;  and,  with  his  spirit  buried  hi  ashes,  and  rent  by  earth- 
quake, yet  fruitful  of  true  thought  and  faithful  affection,  he 
stands  like  that  mound  of  desolate  scoria  that  crowns  the  hill 
ranges  of  his  native  land,  with  its  sable  summit  far  in  heaven, 
and  its  foundations  green  with  the  ordered  garden  and  the 
trellised  vine. 


SHAKESPERE.  327 

When,  however,  our  inquiry  thus  branches  into  the  succes- 
sive analysis  of  individual  characters,  it  is  time  for  us  to  leave 
it ;  noting  only  one  or  two  points  respecting  Shakespere.  He 
seems  to  have  been  sent  essentially  to  take  universal  and 
equal  grasp  of  the  human  nature;  and  to  have  been  removed, 
therefore,  from  all  influences  which  could  in  the  least  warp  or 
bias  his  thoughts.  It  was  necessary  that  he  should  lean  no 
way ;  that  he  should  contemplate,  with  absolute  equality  of 
judgment,  the  life  of  the  court,  cloister,  and  tavern,  and  be 
able  to  sympathize  so  completely  with  all  creatures  as  to 
deprive  himself,  together  with  his  personal  identity,  even  of 
his  conscience,  as  he  casts  himself  into  their  hearts.  He  must 
be  able  to  enter  into  the  soul  of  Falstaff  or  Shylock  with  no 
more  sense  of  contempt  or  horror  than  Falstaff  or  Shylock 
themselves  feel  for  or  in  themselves ;  otherwise  his  own  con- 
science and  indignation  would  make  him  unjust  to  them ; 
he  would  turn  aside  from  something,  miss  some  good,  or 
overlook  some  essential  palliation.  He  must  be  utterly  with- 
out anger,  utterly  without  purpose  ;  for  if  a  man  has  any 
serious  purpose  in  life,  that  which  runs  counter  to  it,  or  is 
foreign  to  it,  will  be  looked  at  frowningly  or  carelessly  by 
him.  Shakespere  was  forbidden  of  Heaven  to  have  any 
plans.  To  do  any  good  or  get  any  good,  in  the  common  sense 
of  good,  was  not  to  be  within  his  permitted  range  of  work. 
Not,  for  him,  the  founding  of  institutions,  the  preaching  of  doc- 
trines, or  the  repression  of  abuses.  Neither  he,  nor  the  sun, 
did,  on  any  morning  that  they  rose  together,  receive  charge 
from  their  Maker  concerning  such  things.  They  wcra 
both  of  them  to  shine  on  the  evil  and  good ;  both  to  behold 
unoffendedly  all  that  was  upon  the  earth,  to  burn  unappalled 
upon  the  spears  of  kings,  and  undisdaining,  upon  the  reeds  of 
the  river. 

Therefore,  so  far  as  nature  had  influence  over  the  earlj 


828  POETRY. 

training  of  this  man,  it  was  essential  to  his  perfectness  that  the 
nature  should  be  quiet.  No  mountain  passions  were  to  be 
allowed  in  him.  Inflict  upon  him  but  one  pang  of  the  monas- 
tic conscience  ;  cast  upon  him  but  one  cloud  of  the  mountain 
gloom ;  and  his  serenity  had  been  gone  for  ever — his  equity — 
nis  infinity.  You  would  have  made  another  Dante  of  him ; 
and  all  that  he  would  have  ever  uttered  about  poor,  soiled,  and 
frail  humanity  would  have  been  the  quarrel  between  Sinou 
and  Adam  of  Brescia, — speedily  retired  from,  as  not  worthy  a 
man's  hearing,  nay,  not  to  be  heard  without  heavy  fault.  All 
your  Falstaffs,  Slenders,  Quicklys,  Sir  Tobys,  Lances,  Touch- 
stones, and  Quinces  would  have  been  lost  in  that.  Shakespere 
could  be  allowed  no  mountains ;  nay,  not  even  any  supreme 
natural  beauty.  He  had  to  be  left  with  his  kingcups  and  clo- 
ver ; — pansics — the  passing  clouds — the  Avon's  flow — and  the 
undulating  hills  and  woods  of  Warwick ;  nay,  he  was  not  to 
love  even  these  in  any  exceeding  measure,  lest  it  might  make 
him  in  the  least  overrate  their  power  upon  the  strong,  full- 
fledged  minds  of  men.  He  makes  the  quarrelling  fairies  con- 
cerned about  them ;  poor  lost  Ophelia  find  some  comfort  in 
them ;  fearful,  fair,  wise-hearted  Perdita  trust  the  speaking  of 
her  good  will  and  good  hostess-ship  to  them ;  and  one  of  the 
brothers  of  Imogen  confide  his  sorrow  to  them, — rebuked 
instantly  by  his  brother  for  "  wench-like  words  ;*"  I  ut  any 

*  "  With  fairest  flowera 

While  summer  lasts,  and  I  live  here,  Fidele, 
I'll  sweeten  thy  sad  grave.     Thou  shall  not  lack 
The  flower  that's  like  thy  face — pale  primrose,  nor 
The  azured  harebell — like  thy  veins;  no,  nor 
The  leaf  of  eglantine,  whom  not  to  slander, 
Outsweetened  not  thy  breath.     The  ruddock  w  Duld 
With  charitable  bill  bring  thce  all  this ; 
Yea,  and  furred  moss  besides,  when  flowers  are  none. 
To  winter-ground  thy  corse. 


SHAKESPERE.  329 

thought  of  them  in  his  mighty  men  I  do  not  find:  it  i»  not 
usually  in  the  nature  of  such  men ;  and  if  he  had  loved  the 
flowers  the  least  better  himself,  he  would  assuredly  have  been 
offended  at  this,  and  given  a  botanical  turn  of  mind  to  Caesar 
or  Othello. 

And  it  is  even  among  the  most  curious  proofs  of  the  neces- 
sity to  all  high  imagination  that  it  should  paint  straight  from 
the  life,  that  he  has  not  given  such  a  turn  of  mind  to  some  of 
Ins  great  men; — Henry  the  Fifth,  for  instance.  Doubtlesa 
some  of  my  readers,  having  been  accustomed  to  hear  it 
repeated  thoughtlessly  from  mouth  to  mouth  that  Shakespere 
conceived  the  spirit  of  all  ages,  were  as  much  offended  as 
surprised  at  my  saying  that  he  only  painted  human  nature  aa 
he  saw  it  in  his  own  time.  They  will  find,  if  they  look  into 
his  work  closely,  as  much  antiquariai.jsm  as  they  do  geogra- 
phy, and  no  more.  The  commonly  received  notions  about 
the  things  that  had  been,  Shakespere  took  as  he  found  them, 
animating  them  with  pure  human  nature,  of  any  time  and  all 
time ;  but  inquiries  into  the  minor  detail  of  temporary  feeling, 
he  despised  as  utterly  as  he  did  maps ;  and  wheresoever  tho 
temporary  feeling  was  in  anywise  contrary  to  that  of  his  own 
day,  he  errs  frankly,  and  paints  from  his  own  time.  For 
instance  in  this  matter  of  love  of  flowers;  we  have  traced 

Gui.  Prithee,  have  done, 

And  do  not  play  in  wench-like  words  with  that 
Which  is  so  serious." 

Imogen  herself  afterwards  in  deeper  passion,  will  give  weedi — not  flowers 
-  and  something  more : 

"  And  when 

With  wildwood  leaves,  and  weeds,  I  have  strewed  hia  grave, 
And  on  it  said  a  century  of  prayers, 
Such  as  I  can,  twice  o'er,  I'll  weep  and  sigh, 
And,  leaving  so  his  sen  ice,  follow  you." 


830  POETRY. 

already,  far  enough  for  our  general  purposes,  tie  medical 
»nterest  in  them,  whether  to  be  enjoyed  in  the  fields,  or  to  be 
used  for  types  of  ornamentation  in  dress.  If  Shakespere  had 
cared  to  enter  into  the  spirit  even  of  the  early  fifteenth  cen- 
tury, he  would  assuredly  have  marked  this  affection  in  some 
of  his  knights,  and  indicated,  even  then,  in  heroic  tempers, 
the  peculiar  respect  for  loveliness  of  dress  which  we  find  con- 
stantly in  Dante.  But  he  could  not  do  this ;  he  had  not  seen 
it  in  real  life.  In  his  time  dress  had  become  an  affectation 
and  absurdity.  Only  fools,  or  wise  men  in  their  weak 
moments,  showed  much  concern  about  it ;  and  the  facts  of 
human  nature  which  appeared  to  him  general  in  the  matter 
were  the  soldier's  disdain,  and  the  coxcomb's  care  of  it.  Hence 
Shakospere's  good  soldier  is  almost  always  in  plain  or  battered 
armor ;  even  the  speech  of  Vernon  in  Henry  the  Fourth, 
which,  as  far  as  I  remember,  is  the  only  one  that  bears  fully 
upon  the  beauty  of  armor,  leans  more  upon  the  spirit  and 
hearts  of  men — "bated,  like  eagles  having  lately  bathed;" 
and  has  an  under-current  of  slight  contempt  running  through 
the  following  line,  "Glittering  in  golden  coats,  like  images  ;" 
while  the  beauty  of  the  young  Harry  is  essentially  the  beauty 
of  fiery  and  perfect  youth,  answering  as  much  to  the  Greek, 
or  Roman,  or  Elizabethan  knight  as  to  the  medieval  one; 
whereas  the  definite  interest  in  armor  and  dress  is  opposed  by 
Shakespere  in  the  French  (meaning  to  depreciate  them),  to 
the  English  rude  soldierliness : 

*  Con     Tut,  I  have  the  best  armor  of  the  world.     Would  it  were  day 
Orl     You  have  an  excellent  armor,  but  let  my  horse  have  his  due." 

And  again : 

"  My  lord  constable,  the  armor  that  I  saw  hi  your  tent  to-night,  are  those 
Btiira,  or  suns,  upon  it?" 


SHAK-ESPERE.  331 

while  Henry,  half  proud  of  his  poorness  of  array,  speaks  of 
armorial  splendor  scornfully ;  the  main  idea  being  still  of  its 
being  a  gilded  show  and  vanity — 

"  Our  gayness  and  our  gilt  are  all  besmirched." 

This  is  essentially  Elizabethan.  The  quarterings  on  a  knight's 
shield,  or  the  inlaying  of  his  armor,  would  never  have  been 
thought  of  by  him  as  mere  "  gayness  or  gilt"  in  earlier  days.* 
In  like  manner,  throughout  every  scale  of  rank  or  feeling, 
from  that  of  the  French  knights  down  to  Falstaff's  "I  looked 
he  should  have  sent  me  two-and-twenty  yards  of  satin,  as  I 
am  true  knight,  and  he  sends  me  secuiity !"  care  for  dress  is 
always  considered  by  Shakespere  as  contemptible;  and  Mrs. 
Quickly  distinguishes  herself  from  a  true  fairy  by  her  solici- 
tude to  scour  the  chairs  of  ordei — and  "  each  fair  instalment, 
coat,  and  several  crest ;"  and  the  association  in  her  mind  of 
the  flowers  in  the  fairy  rings  with  the 

"Sapphire,  pearl,  and  rich  embroidery, 
Buckled  below  fair  knighthood's  bending  knee;" 

\vhi!e  the  true  fairies,  in  field  simplicity,  are  only  anxious  to 
"  sweep  the  dust  behind  the  door ;"  and 

"  With  this  field  dew  consecrate, 
Every  several  chamber  bless 
Through  this  palace  with  sweet  peace." 

Note  the  expression    "  Field  dew   consecrate."      Shakspere 

*  If  the  reader  thinks  that  in  Henry  the  FiftL's  time  the  Elizabethan  tern 
per  might  already  have  been  manifesting  itself,  let  him  compare  the  English 
herald's  speech,  act  2,  scene  2,  of  King  John ;  and  by  way  of  specimen  of 
Shakspere's  historical  care,  or  regard  of  mediaeval  character,  the  large  \ist 
of  artillery  in  the  previous  scene. 


832  POETRY. 

loved  courts  and  camps;  but  he  felt  that  sacredness  and  peace 
were  in  the  dew  of  the  Fields  only. 

There  is  another  respect  in  which  he  was  wholly  incapable 
of  entering  into  the  spirit  of  the  middle  ages.  He  had  no 
great  art  of  any  kind  around  him  in  his  own  country,  and 
was,  consequently,  just  as  powerless  to  conceive  the  general 
influence  of  former  ait,  as  a  man  of  the  most  inferior  calibie. 
Therefore  it  was,  that  I  did  not  care  to  quote  his  authority 
when  speaking  on  a  former  occasion  respecting  the  power  of 
imitation.  If  it  had  been  needful  to  add  his  testimony  to 
that  of  Dante),  I  might  have  quoted  multitudes  of  passages 
wholly  concurring  with  that,  of  which  the  "fair  Portia's 
counterfeit,"  with  the  following  lines,  and  the  implied  ideal 
of  sculpture  in  the  Winter's  Tale,  are  wholly  unanswerable 
instances.  But  Shakespere's  evidence  in  matters  of  art  is  as 
narrow  as  the  range  of  Elizabethan  art  in  England,  and 
resolves  itself  wholly  into  admiration  of  two  things, — mock- 
ery of  life  (as  in  this  instance  of  Hermione  as  a  statue),  or 
absolute  splendor,  as  in  the  close  of  Romeo  and  Juliet,  whore 
the  notion  of  gold  as  the  chief  source  of  dignity  of  aspect, 
coming  down  to  Shakespere  from  the  times  of  the  Field  of 
the  Cloth  of  Gold,  and,  as  I  said  before,  strictly  Elizabethan, 
would  interfere  seriously  with  the  pathos  of  the  whole  pa* 
sage,  but  for  the  sense  of  sacrifice  implied  in  it : 

"  As  rich  shall  Romeo  by  his  lady  lie, 
Poor  sacrifices  of  our  ennrity." 

And  observe,  I  am  not  giving  these  examples  as  proof  of 
any  smallness  in  Shakespere,  but  of  his  greatness ;  that  is  to 
say,  of  his  contentment,  like  every  other  great  man  who  ever 
breathed,  to  paint  nothing  but  ichat  he  saw  /  and  therefore 
giving  perpetual  evidence  that  his  sight  was  of  the  sixteenth, 


THE   ARTIFICIAL   AND   THE    NATURAL.  S3S 

and  not  of  the  thirteenth  century,  beneath  all  the  broad  and 
eternal  humanity  of  his  imagination.  How  far  in  these 
modern  days,  emptied  of  splendor,  it  may  be  necessary  for 
great  men  having  certain  sympathies  for  those  earlier  ages.,  to 
act  in  this  differently  from  all  their  predecessors ;  and  how 
lai  they  may  succeed  in  the  resuscitation  of  the  past  by  habi- 
tually dwelling  in  all  their  thoughts  among  vanished  genera 
tions,  are  questions,  of  all  practical  and  present  ones  con- 
cerning art,  the  most  difficult  to  decide ;  for  already  in  poetry 
several  ol  our  truest  men  have  set  themselves  to  this  task, 
and  have  indeed  put  more  vitality  into  the  shadows  of  the 
dead  than  most  others  can  give  the  presences  of  the  living. 
Tims  Longfellow,  in  the  Golden  Legend,  has  entered  more 
closely  into  the  temper  of  the  Monk,  for  good  and  for  evil,  than 
ever  yet  theological  writer  or  historian,  though  they  may  have 
given  their  life's  labor  to  the  analysis:  and,  again,  Robert 
Browning  is  unerring  in  every  sentence  he  writes  of  the 
middle  ages. 

At  the  close  of  the  last  century,  the  architecture,  domestic 
life  and  manners  were  gradually  getting  more  and  more  arti- 
ficial ;  all  natural  beauty  had  ceased  to  be  permitted  in  archi- 
U'ctural  decoration,  while  the  habits  of  society  led  them  more 
and  more  to  live,  if  possible,  in  cities ;  and  the  dress,  language, 
and  manners  of  men,  in  general,  were  approximating  to  that 
horrible  and  lifeless  condition  in  which  you  find  them,  just 
bol'ure  the  outbreak  of  the  French  Revolution. 

Now,  observe :  exactly  as  hoops,  and  starch,  and  false  hair, 
and  all  that  hi  mind  and  heart  these  things  typify  and  betray, 
as  these,  I  say,  gained  upon  men,  there  was  a  necessary  reaction 
in  favor  of  the  natural.  Men  had  never  lived  so  utterly  in 
defiance  of  the  laws  of  nature  before ;  but  they  could  not  do 
this  without  feeling  a  strange  charm  in  that  which  they  defied; 


831  POETRY. 

and  accordingly  we  find  this  reactionary  sentiment  expressing 
itself  in  a  base  school  of  what  was  called  pastoral  poetry ;  that 
is  to  say,  poetry  written  in  praise  of  the  country,  by  men  who 
lived  in  coffee-houses  and  on  the  Mall.  The  essence  of  pas 
toral  poetry  is  the  sense  of  strange  delightfulness  in  grass, 
which  is  occasionally  felt  by  a  man  who  has  seldom  set  his 
foot  on  it ;  it  is  essentially  the  poetry  of  the  cockney,  and  for 
the  most  part  corresponds  in  its  aim  and  rank,  as  compared 
with  other  literature,  to  the  porcelain  shepherds  and  shej>- 
herdesses  on  a  chimney-piece  as  compared  with  great  works 
of  sculpture. 

Of  course  all  good  poetry,  descriptive  of  rural  life,  is  essen- 
tially pastoral,  or  has  the  effect  of  the  pastoral,  on  the  minds 
of  men  living  in  cities ;  but  the  class  of  poetry  which  I  mean, 
and  which  you  probably  understand,  by  the  term  pastoral,  is 
that  in  which  a  farmer's  girl  is  spoken  of  as  a  "  nymph,"  and 
a  farmer's  boy  as  a  "swain,"  and  in  which,  throughout,  a 
ridiculous  and  unnatural  refinement  is  supposed  to  exist  in 
rural  life,  merely  because  the  poet  himself  h:is  neither  had  the 
courage  to  endure  its  hardships,  nor  the  wit  to  conceive  its 
realities.  If  you  examine  the  literature  of  the  past  century, 
you  will  find  that  nearly  all  its  expressions,  having  reference 
to  the  country,  show  something  of  this  kind ;  either  a  foolish 
sentimentality,  or  a  morbid  lear,  both  of  course  coupled  with 
the  most  curious  ignorance.  You  will  find  all  its  descriptive 
expressions  at  once  vague  and  monotonous.  Brooks  are 
always  "  purling ;"  birds  always  "  warbling ;"  mountains  al- 
ways "lift  their  horrid  peaks  above  the  clouds;"  vales  always 
"  are  lost  in  the  shadow  of  gloomy  woods ;"  a  few  more  dis- 
tinct ideas  about  haymaking  and  curds  and  cream,  acquired 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  Richmond  Bridge,  serving  to  give  an 
occasional  appearance  of  freshness  to  the  catalogue  of  the  sub- 
lime and  beautiful  which  descended  from  poet  to  poet ;  while 


PASTORAL   POETRY.  385 

a  few  true  pieces  of  pastoral,  like  the  "  Vicar  of  "W  aketield," 
and  Walton's  "Angler,"  relieved  the  general  waste  of  dulness. 
Even  in  these  better  productions,  nothing  is  more  remarkable 
than  the  general  conception  of  the  country  merely  as  a  series 
of  green  fields,  and  the  combined  ignorance  and  dread  of  mor€ 
sublime  scenery ;  of  which  the  mysteries  and  dangers  were 
enhanced  by  the  difficulties  of  travelling  at  the  period.  Thug 
in  Walton's  "  Angler,"  you  have  a  meeting  of  two  friends, 
one  a  DerbyshiremaD,  the  other  a  lowland  traveller,  who  is  aa 
much  alarmed,  and  uses  nearly  as  many  expressions  of  asto 
nishment,  at  having  to  go  down  a  steep  hill  and  ford  a  brook, 
as  a  traveller  uses  now  at  crossing  the  glacier  of  the  Col  de 
Geant.  I  am  not  sure  whether  the  difficulties  which,  until 
late  years,  have  lain  in  the  way  of  peaceful  and  convenient 
travelling,  ought  not  to  have  great  weight  assigned  to  them 
among  the  other  causes  of  the  temper  of  the  century ;  but  be 
that  as  it  may,  if  you  will  examine  the  whole  range  of  its 
literature — keeping  this  point  in  view — I  am  well  persuaded 
that  you  will  be  struck  most  forcibly  by  the  strange  deadliest 
to  the  higher  sources  of  landscape  sublimity  which  is  mingled 
with  the  morbid  pastoralism.  The  love  of  fresh  air  and  green 
grass  forced  itself  upon  the  animal  natures  of  men ;  but  that 
of  the  sublimer  features  of  scenery  had  no  place  in  minds 
whose  chief  powers  had  been  repressed  by  the  formalisms  of 
the  age.  And  although  in  the  second-rate  writers  continually, 
and  in  the  first-rate  ones  occasionally,  you  find  an  affectation 
of  interest  in  mountains,  clouds,  and  forests,  yet  whenever 
they  write  from  their  heart,  you  will  find  an  utter  absence  of 
foe-ling  respecting  anything  beyond  gardens  and  grass.  Exa- 
mine, for  instance,  the  novels  of  Smollett,  Fielding,  and  Sterne, 
the  comedies  of  Molicre,  and  the  writings  of  Johnson  and 
Addison,  and  I  do  not  think  you  will  find  a  single  expression 
of  true  delight  in  sublime  nature  in  any  one  of  them.  Per- 


o,36  POETRY. 

haps  Sterne's  "  Sentimental  Journey,"  in  its  total  absence  ol 
sentiment  on  any  subject  but  humanity,  and  its  entire  want 
of  notice  of  anything  at  Geneva,  which  might  not  as  well  have 
been  seen  at  Coxwold,  is  the  most  striking  instance  I '  could 
give  you ;  and  if  you  compare  with  this  negation  of  feeling  on 
one  side,  the  interludes  of  Moliere,  in  which  shepherds  and 
shepherdesses  are  introduced  in  court  dress,  you  have  a  very 
accurate  conception  of  the  general  spirit  of  the  age. 

It  was  hi  such  a  state  of  society  that  the  landscape  of 
Claude,  Gaspar  Poussin,  and  Salvator  Rosa  attained  its  repu- 
tation. It  is  the  complete  expression  on  canvas  of  the  spirit 
of  the  time.  Claude  embodies  the  foolish  pastoralism,  Salva- 
tor the  ignorant  terror,  and  Gaspar  the  dull  and  affected 
erudition. 

It  was,  however,  altogether  impossible  that  this  state  of 
things  could  long  continue.  The  age  which  had  buried  itself 
in  formalism  grew  weary  at  last  of  the  restraint ;  and  the  ap 
proach  of  a  new  sera  was  marked  by  the  appearance,  and  the 
enthusiastic  reception,  of  writers  who  took  delight  :n  those 
wild  scenes  of  nature  which  had  so  long  been  despised. 

I  think  the  first  two  writers  in  whom  the  symptoms  of  a 
change  are  strongly  manifested  are  Mrs.  Radcliffe  and  Rous- 
seau ;  in  both  of  whom  the  love  of  natural  scenery,  though 
mingled  in  the  one  case  with  what  was  merely  dramatic,  and 
in  the  other  with  much  that  was  pitifully  morbid  or  vicious, 
was  still  itself  genuine,  and  intense,  differing  altogether  in 
character  from  any  sentiments  previously  traceable  in  litera- 
Uue.  And  then  rapidly  followed  a  group  of  writers,  who 
expressed,  in  various  ways,  the  more  powerful  or  more  pure 
feeling  which  had  now  become  one  of  the  strongest  instincts 
of  the  age.  Of  these,  the  principal  is  Walter  Scott.  IVIany 
writers,  indeed,  describe  nature  more  minutely  and  more 
profoundly ;  but  none  show  in  higher  intensity  the  peculiar 


LOVE   OF   NATURE.  d37 

passion  for  what  is  majestic  or  lovely  in  wild  nature,  to  which 
I  am  now  referring.  The  whole  of  the  poem  of  the  "  Lady 
of  the  Lake"  is  written  with  almost  a  boyish  enthusiasm  for 
rocks,  and  lakes,  and  cataracts;  the  early  novels  show  the 
same  instinct  in  equal  strength  wherever  he  approaches  High 
land  scenery ;  and  the  feeling  is  mingled,  observe,  with  a  most 
touching  and  affectionate  appreciation  of  the  Gothic  architec- 
ture, in  which  alone  he  found  the  elements  of  natural  beauty 
seized  by  art ;  so  that,  to  this  day,  his  descriptions  of  Melrose 
and  Holy  Island  Cathedral,  in  the  "Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel" 
and  "  Marmion,"  as  well  as  of  the  ideal  abbeys  in  the  "  Monas- 
tery" and  "Antiquary,"  together  with  those  of  Caerlaverock 
and  Lochleven  Castles  in  "Guy  Mannering"  and  "The  Abbot,"' 
remain  the  staple  possessions  and  text-books  of  all  travellers, 
not  so  much  for  their  beauty  or  accuracy,  as  for  their  exactly 
expressing  that  degree  of  feeling  with  which  most  men  in  this 
century  can  sympathise. 

Together  with  Scott  appeared  the  group  of  poets, — Byron, 
Wordsworth,  Keats,  Sheliey,  and,  finally,  Tennyson, — differ- 
ing widely  in  moral  principles  and  spiritual  temper,  but  all 
agreeing  more  or  less  in  this  love  for  natural  scenery. 

Xo\v,  you  will  ask  me — and  you  wiil  ask  me  most  reason- 
ably— how  this  love  of  nature  in  modern  days  can  be  connected 
with  Christianity,  seeing  it  is  as  strong  in  the  infidel  Shelley 
as  in  the  sacred  Wordsworth.  Yes,  and  it  was  found  in  far 
worse  men  than  Shelley.  Shelley  was  an  honest  unbeliever, 
and  a  man  of  warm  affections ;  but  this  new  love-  of  nature  is 
found  in  the  most  reckless  and  unprincipled  of  the  Frem-li 
novelists, — hi  Eugene  Sue,  in  Dumas,  in  George  Sand, — and 
that  intensely.  How  is  this  ?  Simply  because  the  feeling  is 
reactionary ;  and,  in  this  phase  of  it,  common  to  the  diseased 
mind  as  well  as  to  the  healthy  one.  A  man  dying  in  the  fever 
of  intemperance  will  cry  out  for  water,  and  that  with  a  bitterer 

15 


838  POETBY. 

thirst  than  a  man  whose  healthy  frame  naturally  delights  in 
the  mountain  spring  more  than  in  the  wine  cup.  The  water 
is  not  dishonored  by  the  thirst  of  that  diseased,  nor  is  nature 
dishonored  by  the  love  of  the  unworthy.  That  love  is,  per 
haps,  the  only  saving  element  in  their  minds ;  and  it  still 
remains  an  indisputable  truth  that  the  love  of  nature  is  a 
characteristic  of  the  Christian  heart,  just  as  the  hunger  for 
healthy  food  is  characteristic  of  the  healthy  frame. 

I  think  it  probable  that  many  readers  may  be  surprised  at  my 
calling  Scott  the  great  representative  of  the  mind  of  the  age 
hi  literature.  Those  who  can  perceive  the  intense  penetrative 
depth  of  Wordsworth,  and  the  exquisite  finish  and  melodious 
power  of  Tennyson,  may  be  offended  at  my  placing  in  higher 
rank  that  poetry  of  careless  glance,  and  reckless  rhyme,  in 
which  Scott  poured  out  the  fancies  of  his  youth ;  and  these 
who  are  familiar  with  the  subtle  analysis  of  the  French  novelists, 
or  who  have  in  any  wise  submitted  themselves  to  the  influence 
of  German  philosophy,  may  be  equally  indignant  at  my  ascribing 
a  principality  to  Scott  among  the  literary  men  of  Europe,  in 
an  age  which  has  produced  De  Balzac  and  Goethe. 

I  believe  the  first  test  of  a  truly  great  man  is  his  humility 
I  do  not  mean,  by  humility,  doubt  of  his  own  power,  or  hesita- 
tion in  speaking  of  his  opinions ;  but  a  right  understanding  of 
the  relation  between  what  he  can  do  and  say,  and  the  rest  of  the 
world's  sayings  and  doings.  All  great  men  not  only  know  their 
business,  but  usually  know  that  they  know  it;  and  are  not 
only  right  in  their  main  opinions,  but  they  usually  kiiv  w  that 
they  are  right  in  tliem;  only  they  do  not  think  much  of  them- 
selves on  that  account.  Arnolfo  knows  he  can  build  a  good 
dome  at  Florence ;  Albert  Durer  writes  calmly  to  one  who  had 
found  fault  with  his  work,  "  It  cannot  be  better  done ;"  Sir 
Isaac  Newton  knows  that  he  has  worked  out  a  problem  c/ 


HUMILITY    OF    GREA1NESS  339 

two  that  wo  ild  have  puzzled  anybody  else ; — only  t.iey  do  not 
oxpect  their  fellow-men  therefore  to  fall  down  and  worship 
them ;  they  have  a  curious  under-sense  of  powerlessness,  feeling 
that  the  greatness  is  not  in  them,  but  through  them;  that 
thev  could  not  do  or  be  anything  else  than  God  made  them. 
And  they  see  something  divine  and  God-made  in  every  othei 
man  they  meet,  and  are  endlessly,  foolishly,  and  incredibly 
merciful. 

Now,  I  find  among  the  men  of  the  present  age,  as  far  as  1 
know  them,  this  character  in  Scott  and  Turner  pre-eminently ; 
I  am  not  sure  if  it  is  not  in  them  alone.  I  do  not  find  Scott 
talking  about  the  dignity  of  literature,  nor  Turner  about  the 
dignity  of  painting.  They  do  their  work,  feeling  that  they 
cannot  well  help  it ;  the  story  must  be  told,  and  the  effect  put 
down ;  and  if  people  like  it,  well  and  good  ;  and  if  not,  the 
•world  will  not  be  much  the  worse. 

I  believe  a  very  different  impression  of  their  estimate  of 
themselves  and  tlieir  doings  will  be  received  by  any  one  who 
reads  the  conversations  of  Wordsworth  or  Goethe.  The 
slightest  manifestation  of  jealousy  or  self-complacency  is  enough 
to  mark  a  second-rate  character  of  the  intellect ;  and  I  fear  that, 
especially  in  Goethe,  such  manifestations  are  neither  few  nor 
slight. 

Connected  with  this  general  humility  is  the  total  absence 
of  affectation  in  these  men, — that  is  to  say,  of  any  assump 
tion  of  manner  or  behavior  in  their  work,  in  order  to  attract 
attention.  Not  but  that  they  are  mannerists  both.  Scott's 
verse  is  strongly  mannered,  and  Turner's  oil  painting ;  but 
the  manner  of  it  is  necessitated  by  the  feelings  of  the  men, 
entirely  natural  to  both,  never  exaggerated  for  the  sake  of 
show.  I  hardly  know  any  other  literary  or  pictorial  work  of 
the  day  which  is  not  in  some  degree  affected.  I  am  afraid 
Wordsworth  was  often  affected  in  his  simplicity,  and  De  Balzac 


840  POETRY. 

in  his  finish.  Many  fine  French  writers  are  affected  in  theii 
reserve,  and  full  of  stage  tricks  in  placing  of  sentences.  It  is 
lucky  if  in  German  writers  we  ever  find  so  much  as  a  sentence 
without  affectation. 

Again  :  another  very  important,  though  not  infallible  test  of 
greatness  is,  as  we  have  often  said,  the  appearance  of  Ease 
with  which  the  thing  is  done.  It  may  be  that,  as  with  Dante 
and  Leonardo,  the  finish  given  to  the  work  effaces  the  evidence 
oi%  ease ;  but  where  the  ease  is  manifest,  as  in  Scott,  Turner,  and 
Tintoret ;  and  the  thing  done  is  very  noble,  it  is  a  strong  reason 
for  placing  the  men  above  those  who  confessedly  work  with 
great  pains.  Scott  writing  his  chapter  or  two  before  breakfast 
-  -not  retouching,  Turner  finishing  a  whole  drawing  in  a  fore- 
noon before  he  goes  to  shoot  (providing  always  the  chapter 
and  drawing  be  good),  are  instantly  to  be  set  above  men  who 
confessedly  have  spent  the  day  over  the  work,  and  think  the 
hours  well  spent  if  it  has  been  a  little  mended  between  sunrise 
and  sunset.  Indeed,  it  is  no  use  for  men  to  think  to  appear 
great  by  working  fast,  dashing,  and  scrawling ;  the  thing  they 
do  must  be  good  and  great,  cost  what  time  it  may ;  but  if  it  l>c 
so,  and  they  have  honestly  and  unaffectedly  done  it  with  no 
effort,  it  is  probably  a  greater  and  better  thing  than  the  result 
of  the  hardest  efforts  of  others. 

Then,  as  touching  the  kind  of  work  done  by  these  two  men, 
the  more  I  think  of  it  I  find  this  conclusion  more  impressed 
upon  me, — that  the  greatest  thing  a  human  soul  ever  does  in 
tliis  world  is  to  see  something,  and  tell  what  it  saw  in  a  plain  way. 
\  fund  reds  of  people  can  talk  for  one  who  can  think,  but 
thousands  can  think  for  one  who  can  see.  To  see  clearly,  is 
poetry,  prophecy,  and  religion, — all  in  one. 

Therefore,  finding  the  world  of  Literature  more  or  less  divided 
into  Thinkers  and  Seers,  I  believe  we  shall  find  also  that  the 
Seers  are  wholly  the  greater  race  of  the  two.  A  true  Thinker 


THE   TIIIXKEUS    AXD   THE   SEEKS.  841 

who  Las  practical  purpose  in  his  thinking,  and  .s  sincere,  as 
Plato,  or  Carlyle,  or  Helps,  becomes  in  some  sort  a  seer,  and 
must  be  always  of  infinite  use  in  his  generation;  but  an  affected 
Thinker,  who  supposes  his  thinking  of  any  other  importance 
than  as  it  tends  to  work,  is  about  the  vainest  kind  of  person 
that  can  be  found  in  the  occupied  classes.  Nay,  I  believe  that 
metaphysicians  and  philosophers  are,  on  the  whole,  the  greatest 
troubles  the  world  has  got  to  deal  with ;  and  that  while  a  tyrant 
or  bad  man  is  of  some  use  in  teaching  people  submission  or 
indignation,  and  a  thoroughly  idle  man  is  only  harmful  in  setting 
an  idle  example,  and  communicating  to  other  lazy  people  his 
own  lazy  misunderstandings,  busy  metaphysicians  are  always 
entangling  good  and  active  people,  and  weaving  cobwebs 
among  the  finest  wheels  of  the  world's  business;  and  are  as 
much  as  possible,  by  all  prudent  persons,  to  be  brushed  out  of 
their  way,  like  spiders,  and  the  meshed  weed  that  has  got  into 
the  Cambridgeshire  canals,  and  other  such  impediments  to 
barges  and  business.  And  if  we  thus  clear  the  metaphysical 
element  out  of  modern  literature,  we  shall  find  its  bulk  amaz- 
ingly diminished,  and  the  claims  of  the  remaining  writers,  or 
of  those  whom  we  have  thinned  by  this  abstraction  of  their 
straw  stuffing,  much  more  easily  adjusted.* 

Again :  the  mass  of  sentimental  literature,  concerned  with  the 
analysis  and  description  of  emotion,  headed  by  the  poetry  of 
Byron,  is  altogether  of  lower  rank  than  the  literature  which 
merely  describes  what  it  saw.  The  true  Seer  always  feels  as 
intensely  as  any  one  else  ;  but  he  does  not  much  describe  his 

*  Observe,  I  do  not  speak  thus  of  metaphysics  because  I  have  no  pleasure 
in  them.  When  I  speak  contemptuously  of  philology,  it  may  be  answored 
nic,  that  I  am  a  bad  scholar;  but  I  cannot  be  so  answered  touching  meta- 
physics, for  every  one  conversant  with  such  subjects  may  see  that  I  have 
Btrong  inclination  that  way,  which  would,  indeed,  havo  led  me  far  astray  loag 
ago,  if  1  had  uV.  learned  also  some  use  of  ray  hands,  ey«s,  aiid  feet. 


842  POETRY. 

feelings.  He  tells  you  whom  he  met,  and  what  they  said , 
leaves  you  to  make  out,  from  that,  what  they  feel,  and  what 
he  feels,  but  goes  into  little  detail.  And,  generally  spe?  king, 
pathetic  writing  and  careful  explanation  of  passion  are  quite 
easy,  compared  with  this  plain  recording  of  what  people  said 
or  did,  or  with  the  right  invention  of  what  they  are  likely  to 
say  and  do ;  for  this  reason,  that  to  invent  a  story,  or  admirably 
and  thoroughly  tell  any  part  of  a  story,  it  is  necessary  to  grasp 
the  entire  mind  of  every  personage  concerned  in  it,  and  know 
precisely  how  they  would  be  affected  by  what  happens ;  which 
to  do  requires  a  colossal  intellect;  but  to  describe  a  separate 
emotion  delicately,  it  is  only  needed  that  one  should  feel  it 
oneself;  and  thousands  of  people  are  capable  of  feeling  this  or 
that  noble  emotion,  for  one  who  is  able  to  enter  into  all  the 
feelings  of  somebody  sitting  on  the  other  side  of  the  table. 
Even,  therefore,  when  this  sentimental  literature  is  first  rate, 
as  in  passages  of  Byron,  Tennyson,  and  Keats,  it  ought  not  to 
be  ranked  so  high  as  the  Creative;  and  though  perfection, 
even  in  narrow  fields,  is  perhaps  as  rare  as  in  the  wider,  and  it 
may  be  as  long  before  we  have  another  In  Memoriam  as  another 
Guy  Mannering,  I  unhesitatingly  receive  as  a  greater  manifesta« 
tion  of  power  the  right  invention  of  a  few  sentences  spoken  by 
Pleydell  and  Mannering  across  their  supper-table,  than  the  most 
tender  and  passionate  melodies  of  the  self-examining  verse. 

Having,  therefore,  cast  metaphysical  writers  out  of  our  way, 
and  sentimental  wiiters  into  the  second  rank,  I  do  not  thinl: 
Scott's  supremacy  among  those  who  remain  will  any  more  1» 
doubtful ;  nor  would  it,  perhaps,  have  been  doubtful  before,  had 
it  not  been  encumbered  by  innumerable  faults  and  weaknesses 
Bui  it  is  pre-eminently  in  these  faults  and  weaknesses  that 
Scott  is  representative  of  the  mind  of  his  age :  and  because  he 
is  the  gi'eatest  man  born  amongst  us,  and  intended  for  the 
enduring  type  of  us,  all  our  principal  faults  must  be  laid  on  hi* 


WEAKNESSES    OF    THE    AGE.  343 

shoulders,  and  he  must  bear  down  the  dark  marks  to  the  latest 
ages ;  while  the  smaller  men,  who  have  some  special  work  to  do, 
perhaps  not  so  much  belonging  to  this  age  as  leading  out  of  it 
to  the  next,  are  often  kept  providentially  quit  of  the  eucum- 
brances  which  they  had  not  strength  to  sustain,  and  are  much 
smoother  and  pleasant er  to  look  at,  in  their  way ;  only  that  U 
a  smaller  way. 

Thus,  the  most  startling  fault  of  the  age  being  its  faithlessness, 
it  is  necessary  that  its  greatest  man  should  be  faithless.  Nothing 
is  more  notable  or  sorrowful  in  Scott's  mind  than  its  incapacity 
of  steady  belief  iu  anything.  He  cannot  even  resolve  hardily 
to  believe  in  a  ghost,  or  a  water-spirit ;  always  explains  them 
away  in  an  apologetic  manner,  not  believing,  all  the  while, 
even  his  own  explanation.  He  never  can  clearly  ascertain 
whether  there  is  anything  behind  the  arras  but  rats;  never 
draws  swords,  and  thrusts  at  it  for  life  or  death  ;  but  goes  on 
looking  at  it  timidly,  and  saying,  "  it  must  be  the  wind."  He 
is  educated  a  Presbyterian,  and  remains  one,  because  it  is  the 
most  sensible  thing  he  can  do  if  he  is  to  live  in  Edinburgh ;  but 
he  thinks  Romanism  more  picturesque,  and  profaneness  more 
gentlemanly:  does  not  see  that  anything  affects  human  life  but 
,ove,  courage,  and  destiny ;  which  are,  indeed,  not  matters  of 
faith  at  all,  but  of  sight.  Any  gods  but  those  are  very  misty 
in  outline  to  him ;  and  when  the  love  is  laid  ghastly  in  poor 
Charlotte's  coffin  ;  and  the  courage  is  no  more  of  use, — the  pen 
having  fallen  from  between  the  fingers;  and  destiny  is  sealing 
the  scroll, — the  God-light  is  dim  in  the  tears  that  fall  on  it. 

He  is  in  all  this  the  epitome  of  his  epoch. 

Again  :  as  another  notable  weakness  of  the  age  is  its  habit 
of  looking  back,  in  a  romantic  and  passionate  idleness,  to  tho 
past  ages,  not  understanding  them  all  the  while,  nor  really 
desiring  to  understand  them,  so  Scott  gives  up  nearly  the  half 
of  bis  intellectual  power  to  a  fond,  yet  purposeless,  dreaming 


344  POETRY. 

over  the  past,  and  spends  half  his  literary  labors  in  endeavors 
to  revive  it,  not  in  reality,  but  on  the  stage  of  fiction  ;  endeavors 
which  were  the  best  of  the  kind  that  modernism  made,  but  still 
successful  only  so  far  as  Scott  put,  under  the  old  armor,  the 
everlasting  human  nature  which  he  knew ;  and  totally  unsuc- 
cessful, so  far  as  concerned  the  painting  of  the  armor  itself, 
which  he  knew  not.  The  excellence  of  Scott's  work  is  precisely 
in  proportion  to  the  degree  in  which  it  is  sketched  from  present 
nature.  His  familiar  life  is  inimitable ;  his  quiet  scenes  of 
introductory  conversation,  as  the  beginning  of  Rob  Roy  and 
Redgauntlet,  and  all  his  living  Scotch  characters,  mean  or  noble, 
from  Andrew  Fairservice  to  Jeanie  Deans,  are  simply  right,  and 
can  never  be  bettered.  But  his  romance  and  antiquarianism, 
his  knighthood  and  monkery,  are  all  false,  and  he  knows  them 
to  be  false ;  does  not  care  to  make  them  earnest ;  enjoys  them 
for  their  strangeness,  but  laughs  at  his  own  antiquarianism,  all 
through  his  own  third  novel, — with  exquisite  modesty  indeed, 
but  with  total  misunderstanding  of  the  function  of  an  Antiquary, 
He  does  not  see  how  anything  is  to  be  got  out  of  the  past  but 
confusion,  old  iron  on  drawing-room  chairs,  and  serious  incon- 
venience to  Dr.  Heavysterne. 

Again :  more  than  any  age  that  had  preceded  it,  ours  had 
been  ignorant  of  the  meaning  of  the  word  "Art."  It  had  not 
a  single  fixed  principle,  and  what  unfixed  principles  it  worked 
upon  were  all  wrong.  It  was  necessary  that  Scott  should 
know  nothing  of  art.  He  neither  cared  for  painting  nor  sculp- 
ture, and  was  totally  incapable  of  forming  a  judgment  about 
them.  He  had  some  confused  love  of  Gothic  architecture, 
because  it  was  dark,  picturesque,  old,  and  like  nature ;  but 
could  not  tell  the  worst  from  the  best,  and  built  for  himself 
perhaps  the  most  incongruous  and  ugly  pile  that  gentlemanly 
modernism  ever  designed ;  marking,  in  the  most  curious  and 
subtle  way,  that  mingling  of  reverence  with  irreverence  which 


THE    POETRY    OF    SCOTT.  346 

is  so  striking  in  the  age ;  he  reverences  Mel  rose,  yet  casts  one 
of  its  piscinas,  puts  a  modern  steel  grate  into  it,  and  makes  it 
his  fireplace.  Like  all  pure  moderns,  he  supposes  the  Gothic 
barbarous,  notwithstanding  his  love  of  it;  admires,  in  an 
equally  ignorant  way,  totally  opposite  styles  ^  is  delighted 
with  the  new  town  of  Edinburgh  ;  mistakes  its  dulness  foi 
purity  of  taste,  and  actually  compares  it,  in  its  deathful  for- 
mality of  street,  as  contrasted  with  the  rudeness  of  the  old 
town,  to  Britomart  taking  off  her  armor. 

Again :  as  in  reverence  and  irreverence,  so  in  levity  and 
melancholy,  we  saw  that  the  spirit  of  the  age  was  strangely 
interwoven.  Therefore,  also,  it  is  necessary  that  Scott  should 
be  light,  careless,  unearnest,  and  yet  eminently  sorrowful. 
Throughout  all  his  work  there  is  no  evidence  of  any  purpose 
but  to  while  away  the  hour.  His  life  had  no  other  object  than 
the  pleasure  of  the  instant,  and  the  establishing  of  a  family 
name.  All  thoughts  were,  in  their  outcome  and  end,  less 
than  nothing,  and  vanity.  And  yet,  of  all  poetry  that  I  know, 
none  is  so  sorrowful  as  Scott's.  Other  great  masters  are 
pathetic  in  a  resolute  and  predetermined  way,  when  they 
choose ;  but,  in  their  own  minds,  are  evidently  stern,  or  hope- 
ful, or  serene ;  never  really  melancholy.  Even  Byron  is  rather 
sulky  and  desperate  than  melancholy;  Keats  is  sad  because 
he  is  sickly ;  Shelley  because  he  is  impious ;  but  Scof  t  is 
inherently  and  consistently  sad.  Around  all  his  power,  and 
brightness,  and  enjoyment  of  eye  and  heart,  the  far-away 
^Eolian  knell  is  for  ever  sounding;  there  is  not  one  of  those 
loving  or  laughing  glances  of  his  but  it  is  brighter  for  the 
rilm  of  tears;  his  mind  is  like  one  of  his  own  hill  rivers, — it  is 
white,  and  flashes  in  the  sun  fairly,  careless,  as  it  seems,  and 
hasty  in  its  going,  but 

15* 


340  POETKY. 

:|  Far  beneath,  where  slow  they  creep 
From  pool  to  eddy,  dark  and  deep, 
"Where  alders  moist,  and  willows  weep, 
You  hear  her  streams  repine." 

Life  begins  to  pass  from  him  very  early ;  and  while  Hcmei 
sings  cheerfully  in  his  blindness,  and  Dante  retains  his  courage, 
and  rejoices  in  hope  of  Paradise,  through  all  his  exile,  Scott, 
yet  hardly  past  his  youth,  lies  pensive  in  the  sweet  sunshine 
and  among  the  harvest  of  his  native  hills. 

"Blackford,  on  whose  uncultured  breast, 

Among  the  broom,  and  thorn,  and  whin, 
A  truant  boy,  I  sought  the  nest, 
Or  listed  as  I  lay  at  rest, 

While  rose  on  breezes  thin 
The  murmur  of  the  city  crowd, 
And,  from  his  steeple  jangliug  loud, 

St.  Giles's  mingling  din! 
Now,  from  the  summit  to  the  plain, 
Waves  all  the  hill  with  yellow  grain 

And  on  the  landscape  as  I  look, 
Nought  do  I  see  unchanged  remain. 

Save  the  rude  dill's  and  chiming  brook; 
To  me  they  make  a  heavy  moan 
Of  early  friendships  past  and  gone." 

Such,  then,  being  the  weaknesses  which  it  was  necessary 
that  Scott  should  share  with  his  age,  in  order  that  he  might 
sufficiently  represent  it,  and  such  the  grounds  for  supposing 
him,  in  spite  of  all  these  weaknesses,  the  greatest  literary 
man  whom  that  age  produced,  let  us  glance  at  the  principal 
points  in  which  his  view  of  landscape  differs  from  that  of  the 
mediaevals. 

I  shall  not  endeavor  now,  as  I  did  with  Homer  and  Dante, 
to  give  a  complete  analysis  of  all  the  feelings  which  appear  to 


SCOTT  S   METHOD    OF   TREATING   LANDSCAPE.  347 

be  traceable  in  Scott's  allusions  to  landscape  scenery, — for 
this  would  require  a  volume, — but  only  to  indicate  the  main 
points  of  differing  character  between  his  temper  and  Dante's. 
Then  we  will  examine  in  detail,  not  the  landscape  of  literature, 
but  that  of  painting,  Avhich  must,  of  course,  be  equally,  or  even 
in  a  higher  degree,  characteristic  of  the  age. 

And,  first,  observe  Scott's  habit  of  looking  at  nature  neither 
as  dead,  or  merely  material,  in  the  way  that  Homer  regards 
it,  nor  as  altered  by  his  own  feelings,  in  the  way  that  Keats 
and  Tennyson  regard  it,  but  as  having  an  animation  and  pathoa 
of  its  oicn,  wholly  irrespective  of  human  presence  or  passion, 
— an  animation  which  Scott  loves  and  sympathizes  with,  as  he 
would  with  a  fellow-creature,  forgetting  himself  altogether, 
and  subduing  his  own  humanity  before  what  seems  to  him  the 
power  of  the  landscape. 

"  Yon  lonely  thorn, — would  he  could  toll 
The  changes  of  his  parent  dell, 
Since  he,  so  grey  and  stubborn  now, 
Waved  in  each  breeze  a  sapling  bough  1 
Would  he  could  tell,  how  deep  the  shade 
A  thousand  mingled  branches  made, 
How  broad  the  shadows  of  the  oak, 
How  clung  the  rowan  to  the  rock, 
And  through  the  foliage  showed  his  head, 
With  narrow  leaves  and  berries  redl" 

Scott  does  not  dwell  on  the  grey  stubbornness  of  the  thorn, 
because  he  himself  is  at  that  moment  disposed  to  be  dull,  or 
stubborn  ;  neither  on  the  cheerful  peeping  forth  of  the  rowan, 
because  he  himself  is  at  that  moment  cheerful  or  curious :  but 
he  perceives  them  both  with  the  kind  of  interest  that  he  would 
take  in  an  old  man,  or  a  climbing  boy ;  forgetting  himself,  in 
sympathy  with  either  age  or  youth. 


348  POETRY. 

And  from  Ihe  grassy  slope  he  sees 
The  Greta  flow  to  meet  the  Teea, 
Where  issuing  from  her  darksome  ted, 
She  caught  the  morning's  eastern  red, 
And  through  the  softening  vale  below 
Rolled  her  bright  waves  in  rosy  glow, 
All  blushing  to  her  bridal  bed, 
Like  some  shy  maid,  in  convent  bred ; 
While  linnet,  lark,  and  blackbird  gay 
Sing  forth  her  nuptial  roundelay." 

Is  Scott,  or  are  the  persons  of  his  story,  gay  at  this  moment? 
Far  from  it.  Neither  Scott  nor  Risingham  are  happy,  but 
the  Greta  is :  and  Scott's  sympathy  is  ready  for  the  Greta,  on 
the  instant. 

Observe,  therefore,  this  is  not  pathetic  fallacy ;  for  there  ia 
no  passion  in  Scott  which  alters  nature.  It  is  not  the  lover's  ' 
passion,  making  him  think  the  larkspurs  are  listening  for  hia 
lady's  foot ;  it  is  not  the  miser's  passion,  making  him  think 
that  dead  leaves  are  falling  coins ;  but  it  is  an  inherent  and 
continual  habit  of  thought,  which  Scott  shares  with  the  mo- 
derns in  general,  being,  in  fact,  nothing  else  than  the  instinctive 
sense  which  men  must  have  of  the  Divine  presence,  not  formed 
into  distinct  belief.  In  the  Greek  it  created,  as  we  saw,  the 
faithfully  believed  gods  of  the  elements :  in  Dante  and  the  me- 
disevals,  it  formed  the  faithfully  believed  angelic  presence :  in 
the  modern,  it  creates  no  perfect  form,  does  not  apprehend  dis- 
tinctly any  Divine  being  or  operation  ;  but  only  a  dim,  slightly 
credited  animation  in  the  natural  object,  accompanied  with 
great  interest  and  affection  for  it.  This  feeling  is  quite  uni- 
versal with  us,  only  varying  in  depth  according  to  the 
greatness  of  the  heart  that  holds  it ;  and  in  Scott,  being  more 
than  usually  intense,  and  accompanied  with  infinite  affection 
and  quickness  of  sympathy,  it  enables  him  to  conquer  all  ten- 
dencies  to  the  pathetic  fallacy,  and,  instead  of  making  Nature 


SCOTT'S    SYMPATHY    WITII    NATURE.  349 

anywise  subordinate  to  himself,  he  makes  himself  s  ibordinato 
to  her — follows  her  lead  simply — does  not  venture  to  bring  his 
own  cares  and  thoughts  into  her  pure  and  quiet  presence — 
paints  her  in  her  simple  and  universal  truth,  adding  no  result 
of  momentary  passion  or  fancy,  and  appears,  therefore,  at  first 
shallower  than  other  poets,  being  in  reality  wider  and  healthier. 
'•  What  am  I?"  he  says  continually,  "that  I  should  trouble 
this  sincere  nature  with  my  thoughts.  I  happen  to  be  feverish 
and  depressed,  and  I  could  see  a  great  many  sad  and  strange 
things  in  those  waves  and  flowers ;  but  I  have  no  business  to 
see  such  things.  Gay  Greta !  sweet  harebells !  you  are  not 
sad  nor  strange  to  most  people ;  you  are  but  bright  water  and 
blue  blossoms ;  you  shall  not  be  anything  else  to  me,  except 
that  I  cannot  help  thinking  you  are  a  little  alive, — no  one 
can  help  thinking  that."  And  thus,  as  Nature  is  bright, 
serene,  or  gloomy,  Scott  takes  her  temper,  and  paints  her  aa 
she  is ;  nothing  of  himself  being  ever  intruded,  except  that 
far-away  Eolian  tone,  of  which  he  is  unconscious ;  and  some 
times  a  stray  syllable  or  two,  like  that  about  Blackford  Hill, 
distinctly  stating  personal  feeling,  but  all  the  more  modestly 
for  that  distinctness,  and  for  the  clear  consciousness  that  it  is 
not  the  chiming  brook,  nor  the  corn-fields,  that  are  sad,  but 
only  the  boy  that  rests  by  them ;  so  returning  on  the  instant 
to  reflect,  in  all  honesty,  the  image  of  Nature  as  she  is  meant 
by  all  to  be  received ;  nor  that  in  fine  words,  but  in  the  first 
that  come ;  nor  with  comment  of  far-fetched  thoughts,  but 
with  easy  thoughts,  such  as  all  sensible  men  ought  to  have  in 
such  places,  only  spoken  sweetly ;  and  evidently  also  with  an 
undercurrent  of  more  profound  reflection,  which  here  and  there 
murmurs  for  a  moment,  and  which  I  think,  if  we  choose,  we 
may  continually  pierce  down  to,  and  drink  deeply  from,  but 
which  Scott  leaves  us  to  seek,  or  shun,  at  our  pleasure. 
And  in  consequence  of  this  unselfishness  and  humility,  Scott'.-? 


350  POETRY. 

enjoyment  of  Nature  is  incomparably  greater  than  that  ol  any 
other  poet  I  know.  All  the  rest  carry  their  cares  to  her,  and 
begin  maundering  in  her  ears  about  their  own  affairs.  Ten- 
nyson goes  out  on  a  furzy  common,  and  sees  it  is  calm  autumn 
sunshine,  but  it  gives  him  no  pleasure.  He  only  remembers 
that  it  is 

"  Dead  calm  in  that  noble  breast 
Which  heaves  but  with  the  heaving  deep." 

He  sees  a  thundercloud  in  the  evening,  and  would  have 
"  doted  and  pored"  on  it,  but  cannot,  for  fear  it  should  bring 
the  ship  bad  weather.  Keats  drinks  the  beauty  of  Nature 
violently ;  but  has  no  more  real  sympathy  with  her  than  lie 
has  with  a  bottle  of  claret.  His  palate  is  line ;  but  he  "  bursts 
joy's  grape  against  it,"  gets  nothing  but  misery,  and  a  bitter 
taste  of  dregs  out  of  his  desperate  draught. 

Byron  and  Shelley  are  nearly  the  same,  only  with  less  truth 
of  perception,  and  even  more  troublesome  selfishness.  Words- 
worth is  more  like  Scott,  and  understands  how  to  be  happy, 
but  yet  cannot  altogether  rid  himself  of  the  sense  that  he  is  a 
philosopher,  and  ought  always  to  be  saying  something  \\  is.-. 
He  has  also  a  vague  notion  that  Nature  would  not  be  able  to 
get  on  well  without  Wordsworth ;  and  finds  a  considerable 
part  of  his  pleasure  in  looking  at  himself,  as  well  as  at  her. 
But  with  Scott  the  love  is  entirely  humble  and  unselfish.  "  I, 
Scott,  am  nothing,  and  less  than  nothing ;  but  these  crags, 
and  heaths,  and  clouds,  how  great  they  are,  how  lovely,  how 
for  ever  to  be  beloved,  only  for  their  own  silent,  thoughtless 
sake !" 

This  pure  passion  for  nature  in  its  abstract  being,  is  still 
increased  in  its  intensity  by  the  two  elements  above  taken 
notice  of, — the  love  of  antiquity,  and  the  love  of  color  and 


351 

beautiful  form,  mortified  in  our  streets,  and  seeking  for  food 
in  the  wilderness  and  the  ruin  :  both  feelings,  observe,  instinc- 
tive in  Scott  from  his  childhood,  as  everything  that  makes  a 
man  great  is  always. 

"  And  well  the  lonely  infant  knew 
Recesses  where  the  wallflower  grew, 
And  honeysuckle  loved  to  crawl, 
Up  the  long  crag  and  ruined  wall. 
I  deemed  such  nooks  the  sweetest  shade 
The  sun  in  all  its  round  surveyed." 

Not  that  these  could  have  been  instinctive  in  a  child  in  the 
Middle  Ages.  The  sentiments  of  a  people  increase  or  diminish 
in  intensity  from  generation  to  generation, — every  disposition 
of  the  parents  affecting  the  frame  of  the  mind  in  their  off- 
spring :  the  soldier's  child  is  born  to  be  yet  more  a  soldier,  and 
the  politician's  to  be  still  more  a  politician  ;  even  the  slightest 
colors  of  sentiment  and  affection  are  transmitted  to  the  heirs 
of  life ;  and  the  crowning  expression  of  the  mind  of  a  people 
is  given  when  some  infant  of  highest  capacity,  and  sealed  with 
the  impress  of  this  national  character,  is  bora  where  providen- 
tial circumstances  permit  the  full  development  of  the  powers 
it  has  received  straight  from  Heaven,  and  the  passions  which  it 
has  inherited  from  its  fathers. 

This  love  of  ancientness,  and  that  of  natural  beauty,  associ- 
ate themselves  also  in  Scott  with  the  love  of  liberty,  which 
was  indeed  at  the  root  even  of  all  his  Jacobite  tendencies  in 
politics.  For,  putting  aside  certain  predilections  about  landed 
property,  and  family  name,  and  "  gentlemanliness"  in  the  club 
sense  of  the  word, — respecting  which  I  do  n  Dt  now  inquire 
whether  they  were  weak  or  wise,— the  main  element  which 
makes  Scott  like  Cavaliers  better  than  Puritans  is,  that  he 
i.hinks  the  former  free  and  masterful  as  well  as  loyal;  and 


852  POETRY. 

the  latter  formal  and  slavish.  He  is  loyal,  not  so  much  in 
respect  for  law,  as  iu  unselfish  love  for  the  king;  and  his  sym- 
pathy is  quite  as  ready  for  any  active  borderer  who  break>  the 
law,  or  fights  the  king,  in  what  Scott  thinks  a  generous  way 
as  for  the  king  himself.  Rebellion  of  a  rough,  free,  and  bold 
kind  he  is  always  delighted  by ;  he  only  objects  to  rebellion 
on  principle  and  in  form:  bare-headed  and  open-throated  trea- 
son he  will  abet  to  any  extent,  but  shrinks  from  it  in  a  peaked 
hat  and  starched  collar :  nay,  politically,  he  only  delights  in 
kingship  itself,  because  he  looks  upon  it  as  the  head  and 
centre  of  liberty ;  and  thinks  that,  keeping  hold  of  a  king's 
hand,  one  may  get  rid  of  the  cramps  and  fences  of  law ;  and 
that  the  people  may  be  governed  by  the  whistle,  as  a  High- 
land clan  on  the  open  hill-side,  instead  of  being  shut  up  into 
hurdled  folds  or  hedged  fields,  as  sheep  or  cattle  left  masterless. 
And  thus  nature  becomes  dear  to  Scott  in  a  threefold  way; 
dear  to  him,  first,  as  containing  those  remains  or  memoriea 
of  the  past,  which  he  cannot  find  in  cities,  and  giving  hope 
of  Praetorian  mound  or  knight's  grave,  in  every  green  slope 
and  shade  of  its  desolate  places  ; — dear,  secondly,  in  its  moor- 
land liberty,  which  has  for  him  just  as  high  a  charm  as  the 
fenced  garden  had  for  the  mediaeval : 

"  For  I  was  wayward,  bold,  and  wild, 
A  self-willed  imp — a  grandame's  child; 
But,  half  a  plague,  and  half  a  jest, 
Was  still  endured,  beloved,  caressed ; 
For  me,  thus  nurtured,  dost  thou  ask 
The  classic  poet's  well-conned  task  ? 
Nay,  Erskine,  nay.     On  the  wild  hill 
Let  the  wild  heathbcll  flourish  still; 
Cherish  the  tulip,  prune  the  vine; 
But  freely  let  the  woodbine  twine, 
And  leave  untrimmed  the  eglantine ;" 

—and  dear  to  him,  finally,  in  that  perfect  beauty,  denied  alike 


LOVE    OF    COLOK.  353 

in  cities  and  in  men,  tor  which  every  modem  _eart  had,  begun 
at  last  to  thirst,  and  Scott's,  in  its  freshness-  and  power,  of  all 
men's,  most  earnestly. 

.  And  in  this  love  of  beauty,  observe,  that  (as  I  said  we  might 
c-.vtvpt)  the  love  of  color  is  a  leading  element,  his  healthy 
mind  being  incapable  of  losing,  under  any  modern  false  teach- 
ing, its  joy  in  brilliancy  of  hue.  Though  not  so  subtle  a 
colorist  as  Dante,  which,  under  the  circumstances  of  the  age, 
he  could  not  be,  he  depends  quite  as  much  upon  color  for  hia 
power  or  pleasure.  And,  in  general,  if  he  does  not  mean  to 
say  much  about  things,  the  one  character  which  he  will  give  is 
color,  using  it  with  the  most  perfect  mastery  and  faithfulness, 
up  to  the  point  of  possible  modern  perception.  For  instance, 
if  he  has  a  sea-storm  to  paint  in  a  single  line,  he  does  not,  aa 
a  feebler  poet  would  probably  have  done,  use  any  expression 
about  the  temper  or  form  of  the  waves ;  does  not  call  them 
angry  or  mountainous.  He  is  content  to  strike  them  out  with 
two  dashes  of  Tintoret's  favorite  colors 

"  The  blackening  wave  is  edged  ivith  while; 
To  inch  and  ruck  the  seamews  tiy." 

There  is  no  form  in  this.  Nay,  the  main  virtue  of  it  is,  that 
it  gets  rid  of  all  form.  The  dark  raging  of  the  sea — what 
form  has  that  ?  But  out  of  the  cloud  of  its  darkness  those 
lightning  flashes  of  the  foam,  coming  at  their  terrible  intervals 
— you  need  no  more. 

Again :  where  he  has  to  describe  tents  mingled  among  oaks, 
he  says  nothing  about  the  form  of  either  tent  or  tree,  but  only 
gives  the  twc  strokes  of  color : 

"  Thousand  pavilions,  white  as  snow, 
Chequered  the  borough  moor  below, 
Oft  giving  way,  where  still  there  stood 
Some  relics  of  the  old  oak  wood, 


354  POETRY. 


That  darkly  huge  did  intervene, 

And  tamed  the  glaring  white  with  green.'* 

Again :  of  tents  at  Flodden : 

"  Next  morn  the  Baron  climbed  the  tower, 
To  view,  afar,  the  Scottish  power, 

Encamped  on  Flodden  edge. 
The  white  pavilions  made  a  show, 
Like  remnants  of  the  winter  snow, 

Along  the  dusky  ridge." 

Again :  of  trees  mingled  with  dark  rocks  : 

"  Until,  where  Teith's  young  waters  roll 
Betwixt  him  and  a  wooded  knoll, 
That  graced  the  saltle  strath  with  green. 
The  chapel  of  St.  Bride  was  seen." 

Again:  there  is  hardly  any  form,  only  smoke  and  ooor 
in  his  celebrated  description  of  Edinburgh : 

"  The  wandering  eye  could  o'er  it  go, 
And  mark  the  distant  city  glow 

With  gloomy  splendor  red ; 
For  on  the  smoke-wreaths,  huge  and  slow, 
That  round  her  sable  turrets  flow, 

The  morning  beams  were  shed, 
And  tinged  them  with  a  lustre  proud, 
Like  that  which  streaks  a  thunder-cloud. 
Such  dusky  grandeur  clothed  the  height, 
Where  the  huge  castle  holds  its  state, 

And  all  the  steep  slope  down, 
Whose  ridgy  back  heaves  to  the  sky, 
Piled  deep  and  massy,  close  and  high, 

Mine  own  romantic  town! 
But  northward  far  with  p  iror  blaze, 
On  Ochil  mountains  fell  the  rays, 


LOVE   OF   COLOR.  355 

And  as  each  heathy  top  they  kissed, 
It  gleamed  a  purple  amethyst 
Yonder  the  shores  of  Fife  you  saw ; 
Here  Preston  Bay  and  Berwick  Law: 

And,  broad  between  them  rolled, 
The  gallant  Frith  the  eye  might  note, 
Whose  islands  on  its  bosom  float, 

Like  emeralds  chased  in  gold." 

I  do  not  like  to  spoil  a  fine  passage  by  italicizing  it ;  but 
observe,  the  only  hints  at  form,  given  throughout,  are  in  the 
somewhat  vague  words,  "ridgy,"  "massy,"  "close,"  and 
"  high :"  the  Avhole  being  still  more  obscured  by  modern  mys- 
tery, in  its  most  tangible  form  of  smoke.  But  the  colors  are 
all  definite ;  note  the  rainbow  band  of  them — gloomy  or  dusky 
red,  sable  (pure  black),  amethyst  (pure  purple),  green,  and 
gold — a  noble  chord  throughout ;  and  then,  moved  doubtless 
less  by  the  smoky  than  the  amethystine  part  of  the  group, 

"  fltz  Eustace'  heart  felt  closely  pent, 
The  spur  he  to  his  charger  lent, 

And  raised  his  bridle  hand. 
And  making  demivolte  in  air, 
Cried,  'Where's  the  coward  would  not  dare 
To  fight  for  such  a  land  ?'  " 

I  need  not  multiply  examples :  the  reader  can  easily  trace 
for  himself,  through  verse  familiar  to  us  all,  the  force  of  these 
color  instincts.  I  will  therefore  add  on^y  two  passages,  not 
so  completely  known  by  heart  as  most  oi  the  poems  in  which 
they  occur. 

"  'Twas  silence  all.     He  laid  him  down 
Where  purple  heath  profusely  strown, 


356  POETRY. 

And  throatwort,  with  its  azure  belL 

And  moss  and  thyme  his  cushion  swell, 

There,  speut  with  toil,  he  listless  eyed 

The  course  of  Greta's  playful  tide ; 

Beneath  her  banks,  now  eddying  dun, 

Now  brightly  gleaming  to  the  sun. 

As,  dancing  over  rock  and  stone, 

In  yellow  light  her  currents  shone, 

Matching  in  hue  the  favorite  gem 

Of  Albin's  mountain  diadem. 

Then  tired  to  watch  the  current  play, 

He  turned  his  weary  eyes  away 

To  where  the  bank  opposing  showed 

Its  huge  square  cliffs  through  shaggy  wood. 

One,  prominent  above  the  rest, 

Reared  to  the  sun  its  pale  grey  breast ; 

Around  its  broken  summit  grew 

The  hazel  rude,  and  sable  yew ; 

A  thousand  varied  lichens  d3-ed 

Its  waste  and  weather-beaten  side ; 

And  round  its  rugged  basis  lay, 

By  time  or  thunder  rent  away, 

Fragments,  that,  from  its  frontlet  torn, 

Were  mantled  now  by  verdant  "horn,1 

Note,  first,  what  an  exquisite  chord  of  color  is  given  in  the 
succession  of  this  passage.  It  begins  Afith  ourple  and  blue ; 
then  passes  to  gold,  or  cairngorm  color  (top&i  color)  ;  then  to 
pale  grey,  through  Avhich  the  yellow  passes  into  black ;  and 
the  black,  through  broken  dyes  of  lichen,  into  green.  Noto, 
secondly, — Avhat  is  indeed  so  manifest  throughout  Scott'd 
landscape  as  hardly  to  need  pointing  out, — fie  love  of  rocks, 
and  true  understanding  of  their  colors  and  characters,  oppose! 
as  it  is  in  every  conceivable  way  to  Dante's  hatred  and  misun- 
derstanding of  them. 

I  have  already  traced,  in  various  places,  most  of  the  causes 


LOVE    OF    COLOR.  357 

of  this  great  difference :  namely,  first,  the  ruggedness  of  north- 
ern temper  (compare  §  8.  of  the  chapter  on  the  Nature  of 
Gothic  in  the  Stones  of  Venice) ;  then  the  really  greater  beauty 
of  the  northern  rocks,  as  noted  when  we  were  speaking  of  the 
Apennine  limestone ;  then  the  need  of  finding  beauty  among 
them,  if  it  were  to  be  found  anywhere, — no  well-arranged 
colors  being  any  more  to  be  seen  in  dress,  but  only  in  rock 
lichens ;  and,  finally,  the  love  of  irregularity,  liberty,  and 
poAver,  springing  up  iu  glorious  opposition  to  laws  of  prosody, 
fashion,  and  the  five  orders. 

The  other  passage  I  have  to  quote  is  still  more  interesting ; 
because  it  has  no  form  in  it  at  all  except  in  one  word  (cha 
lice),  but  wholly  composes  its  imagery  cither  of  color,  or  of 
that  delicate  half-believed  life  which  we  have  teen  to  be  so 
important  an  element  in  modern  landscape. 

"  The  summer  dawn's  reflected  hue 
To  purple  changed  Loch  Katrine  blue ; 
Mildly  aud  soft  the  western  breeze 
Just  kissed  the  lake;  just  stirred  the  trees; 
And  the  pleased  lake,  like  maiden  coy, 
Trembled,  but  dimjtled  not,  for  joy ; 
The  mountain-shadows  on  her  breast 
Were  neither  broken  nor  at  rest; 
Iii  bright  uncertainty  they  lie, 
Like  future  joys  to  Fancy's  eye. 
The  water-lily  to  the  light 
Her  chalice  reared  of  silver  bright : 
The  doe  awoke,  arid  to  the  lawn; 
BaRemmcd  with  dew-drops,  led  her  fawii; 
The  grey  mist  left  the  mountain  side; 
The  torrent  showed  its  glistening  pride ; 
Invisible  in  flecked  sky, 
The  lark  sent  down  her  revelry ; 
The  blackbird  and  the  speckled  thrush 
Good-morrow  gave  from  brake  and  bush; 


358  POETRY. 

In  answer  cooed  the  cushat  dove 
Her  notes  of  peace,  and  rest,  and  love.' 

Two  more  considerations  are,  however,  suggested  by  tl.e 
above  passage.  The  first,  that  the  love  of  natural  history, 
excited  by  the  continual  attention  now  given  to  all  wild  laud- 
scape,  heightens  reciprocally  the  interest  of  that  landscape,  and 
becomes  an  important  element  in  Scott's  description,  leading 
him  to  finish,  down  to  the  minutest  speckling  of  breast,  and 
slightest  shade  of  attributed  emotion,  the  portraiture  of  birds 
and  animals ;  in  strange  opposition  to  Homer's  slightly  named 
"sea-crows,  who  have  care  of  the  works  of  the  sea,"  and 
Dante's  singing-birds,  of  undefined  species.  Compare  care- 
fully a  passage,  too  long  to  be  quoted, — the  2nd  and  3rd  stan- 
zas of  canto  vi.  of  Rokeby. 

The  second,  and  the  last  point  I  have  to  note,  is  Scott's 
habit  of  drawing  a  slight  moral  from  every  scene,  just  enough 
to  excuse  to  his  conscience  his  want  of  definite  religious  feel- 
ing ;  and  that  this  slight  moral  is  almost  always  melancholy, 
Here  he  has  stopped  short  without  entirely  expressing  it — 

"  The  mountain  shadows        . 
•     lie 
Like  future  joys  to  Fancy's  eye." 

His  completed  thought  would  be,  that  those  future  joys,  like 
the  mountain  shadows,  were  never  to  be  attained.  It  occurs 
fully  uttered  in  many  otiier  places.  He  seeins  to  have  been 
constantly  rebuking  his  own  worldly  pride  and  vanity,  but 
never  purposefully : 

"  The  foam-globes  on  her  eddies  ride, 
Thick  as  the  schemes  of  human  pride 
That  down  life's  current  drive  amain. 
As  frail,  as  frothy,  and  as  vain." 


A   SUNSET.  859 

"  Foxglove,  and  nightshade,  side  by  side, 
Emblems  of  punishment  and  pride." 

"  Her  dark  eye  flashed ;  she  paused  and  sighed  ;— 
'  Ah,  what  have  I  to  do  with  pride  I1 " 

And  hear  the  thought  he  gathers  from  the  sunset  (noting 
first  the  Turnerian  color, — as  usual,  its  principal  element) : 

"  The  sultry  summer  day  is  done. 
The  western  hills  have  hid  the  sun, 
But  mountain  peak  and  village  spire 
Retain  reflection  of  his  fire. 
Old  Barnard's  towers  are  purple  still, 
To  those  that  gaze  from  Toller  Hill ; 
Distant  and  high  the  tower  of  Bowea 
Like  steel  upon  the  anvil  glows ; 
And  Stanmore's  ridge,  behind  that  lay, 
Rich  with  the  spoils  of  parting  day, 
-    In  crimson  and  in  gold  arrayed, 
Streaks  yet  awhile  the  closing  shade; 
Then  slow  resigns  to  darkening  heaven 
The  tints  which  brighter  hours  had  given. 
Thus,  aged  men,  full  loth  and  slow, 
The  vanities  of  life  forego, 
And  count  their  youthful  follies  o'er 
Till  Memory  lends  her  light  no  more." 

That  is.  as  far  as  I  remember,  one  of  the  most  finished  pieces 
of  sunset  he  has  given ;  and  it  has  a  woful  moral ;  yet  one 
which,  with  Scott,  is  inseparable  from  the  scene. 
Hark,  again : 

"  'Twere  sweet  to  mark  the  setting  day 
On  Bourhope's  lonely  top  decay ; 
And,  as  it  faint  and  feeble  died 
On  the  broad  lake  and  mountain's  bide, 


300  POETRY. 

To  say,  '  Thus  pleasures  fade  away ; 
Youth,  talents,  beauty,  thus  decay, 
And  leave  us  dark,  forloru,  and  grey.  * 

And  again,  hear  Bertram : 

"  Mine  be  the  eve  of  tropic  sun : 
With  disk  like  battle  target  red, 
He  rushes  to  his  burning  bed, 
Dyes  the  wide"  v/ave  with  bloody  light, 
Then  sinks  at  once ;  and  all  is  night." 

In  all  places  of  this  kind,  where  a  passing  thought  is  Sug- 
gested by  some  external  scene,  that  thought  is  at  once  a  slight 
and  sad  one.  Scott's  deeper  moral  sense  is  marked  in  the 
conduct  of  his  stories,  and  in  casual  reflections  or  exclamations 
arising  out  of  their  plot,  and  therefore  sincerely  uttered ;  as 
that  of  Marmion : 

"  Oh,  what  a  tangled  web  we  weave, 
When  first  we  practise  to  deceive  I" 

But  the  reflections  which  are  founded,  not  on  events,  but 
on  scenes,  are,  for  the  most  part,  shallow,  partly  insincere,  and, 
as  far  as  sincere,  sorrowful.  This  habit  of  ineffective  dream- 
ing and  moralizing  over  passing  scenes,  of  which  the  earliest 
type  I  know  is  given  in  Jaques,  is,  as  aforesaid,  usually  the 
satisfaction  made  to  our  modern  consciences  for  the  want  of  a 
sincere  acknowledgment  of  God  in  nature:  and  Shakspere 
has  marked  it  as  the  characteristic  of  a  mind  "  compact  of 
jars." 

In  tho  reading  of  a  great  poem,  in  the  hearing  of  a  noble 
oration,  it  is  the  subject  of  the  writer  and  not  his  skill, — his 


TWO    ORDERS    OF   POKTS.  3C1 

passion,  not  his  power,  on  which  our  minds  are  fixed.  We  see 
as  he  sees,  but  we  see  not  him.  We  become  part  of  him,  feel 
with  him,  judge,  behold  with  him ;  but  we  think  of  him  as  lit- 
tle as  of  ourselves.  Do  we  think  of  ^Eschylus  while  we  wait  on 
the  silence  of  Cassandra,  or  of  Shakspere,  while  we  listen  to 
the  wailing  of  Lear  ?  Not  so.  The  power  of  the  masters  ia 
known  by  their  self-annihilation.  It  is  commensurate  with  the 
degree  in  which  they  themselves  appear  not  in  their  work. 
The  harp  of  the  minstrel  is  untruly  touched,  if  his  own  glory 
is  all  that  it  truly  records.  Every  great  writer  may  be  at 
oiwe  known  by  his  guiding  the  mind  far  from  himself  to  the 
beauty  which  is  not  of  his  creation,  and  the  knowledge  which 
is  past  his  finding  out. 

I  admit  two  orders  of  poets,  but  no  third  ;  and  by  these  two 
orders  I  mean  the  Creative  (Shakspere,  Homer,  Dante),  and 
Reflective  or  Perceptive  (Wordsworth,  Keats,  Tennyson). 
But  both  of  these  must  be  first-rate  in  their  range,  though 
their  range  is  different ;  and  with  poetry  second-rate  in  quality 
no  one  ought  to  be  allowed  to  trouble  mankind.  There  is 
quite  enough  of  the  best, — much  more  than  we  can  ever  read 
or  enjoy  in  the  length  of  a  life  ;  and  it  is  a  literal  wrong  or  sin 
in  any  person  to  encumber  us  with  inferior  work.  I  have  no 
patience  with  apologies  made  by  young  pseudo-poets,  "  that 
they  believe  there  is  some  good  in  what  they  have  written : 
that  they  hope  to  do  better  in  time,"  &c.  Some  good  !  If 
there  is  not  all  good,  there  is  no  good.  If  they  ever  hope  to 
do  better,  why  do  they  trouble  us  now  ?  Let  them  rather 
courageously  burn  all  they  have  done,  and  wait  for  the  better 
days.  There  are  few  men,  ordinarily  educated,  who  in  moments 
of  strong  feeling  could  not  strike  out  a  poetical  thought,  and 
afterwards  polish  it  so  as  to  be  presentable.  But  men  of  sense 
know  better  than  so  to  waste  their  time ;  and  those  who  sin- 

1G 


062  POETEY 

cerely  love  poetry,  know  the  touch  of  the  master's  hand  on 
the  chords  too  well  to  fumble  among  them  after  him.  Nay 
more  than  this ;  all  inferior  poetry  is  an  injury  to  the  good, 
inasmuch  as  it  takes  away  the  freshness  of  rhymes,  blunders 
upon  and  gives  a  wretched  commonalty  to  good  thoughts ; 
and,  in  general,  adds  to  the  weight  of  human  weariness  in  a 
most  woful  and  culpable  manner.  There  are  few  thoughts 
likely  to  come  across  ordinary  men,  which  have  not  already 
been  expressed  by  greater  men  in  the  best  possible  way ;  and 
it  is  a  wiser,  more  generous,  more  noble  thing  to  remember 
and  point  out  the  perfect  words,  than  to  invent  poorer  ones, 
wherewith  to  encumber  temporarily  the  world. 

Keats,  describing  a  wave,  breaking,  out  at  sea,  says  of  it — 

"  Down  whose  green  back  the  short-lived  foam,  all  hoar, 
Bursts  gradual,  with  a  wayward  indolence." 

That  is  quite  perfect,  as  an  example  of  the  modern  manner. 
The  idea  of  the  peculiar  action  with  which  foam  rolls  down  a 
long,  large  wave  could  not  have  been  given  by  any  other 
words  so  well  as  by  this  "  wayward  indolence."  But  Homer 
would  never  have  written,  never  thought  of,  such  words.  He 
could  not  by  any  possibility  have  lost  sight  of  the  groat  fact 
that  the  wave  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  it,  io  what  it 
might,  was  still  nothing  else  than  salt  water;  and  tfiat  salt 
water  could  not  be  either  wayward  or  indolent.  He  will  call 
the  waves  "over-roofed,"  "full-charged,"  "monstrous,"  "com- 
pact-black," "dark-clear,"  "violet-colored,"  "wine-colored," 
and  so  on.  But  every  oiie  of  these  epithets  is  descriptive  of 
pure  physical  nature.  "  Over-roofed"  is  the  term  he  invarif bl j 
uses  of  anything — rock,  house,  or  wave — that  nods  over  at 
the  brow  ;  the  other  terms  need  no  explanation  ;  they  are  fu» 


ALTER  ABILITY.  803 

accurate  and  intense  in  truth  as  words  can  be,  but  they  never 
show  the  slightest  feeling  of  anything  animated  in  the  ocean. 
Black  or  clear,  monstrous  or  violet-colored,  cold  salt  water 
it  is  always,  and  nothing  but  that. 

And  thus,  in  full,  there  are  four  classes ;  the  men  who  feel 
nothing,  and  therefore  see  truly ;  the  men  who  feel  strongly, 
think  weakly,  and  see  untruly  (second  order  of  poets) ;  the 
men  who  feel  strongly,  think  strongly,  and  see  truly  (first 
order  of  poets)  ;  and  the  men  who,  strong  as  human  creatures 
can  be,  are  yet  submitted  to  influences  stronger  than  they, 
and  see  in  a  sort  untruly,  because  what  they  see  is  inconceiv- 
ably above  them.  This  last  is  the  usual  condition  of  prophetic 
inspiration. 

I  separate  these  classes,  in  order  that  their  character  may  bo 
clearly  understood ;  but  of  course  they  are  united  each  to  th<n 
other  by  imperceptible  transitions,  and  the  same  mind,  accord 
ing  to  the  influences  to  which  it  is  subjected,  passes  at  different 
times  into  the  various  states.  Still,  the  difference  between  the 
great  and  less  man  is,  on  the  whole,  chiefly  in  this  point  of 
alterability.  That  is  to  say,  the  one  knows  too  much,  and  per- 
ceives and  feels  too  much  of  the  past  and  future,  and  of  all 
things  beside  and  around  that  which  immediately  affects  him. 
to  be  in  any  wise  shaken  by  it.  His  mind  is  made  up;  his 
thoughts  have  an  accustomed  current ;  his  ways  are  steadfast ; 
it  is  not  this  or  that  new  sight  which  will  at  once  unbalance 
him.  He  is  tender  to  impression  at  the  surface,  h'ke  a  rock  with 
deep  moss  upon  it ;  but  there  is  too  much  mass  of  him  to  be 
moved.  The  smaller  man,  with  the  same  degree  of  sensibility, 
is  at  once  carried  oft*  his  feet ;  he  wants  to  do  something  he  did 
not  want  to  do  before ;  he  views  all  the  universe  in  a  new  light 
through  his  tears  ;  he  is  gay  or  enthusiastic,  melancholy  or 
passionate,  as  things  come  and  go  to  him.  Therefore  the  high 


864  POETRY. 

creative  poet  might  even  be  thought,  to  a  great  extei\% 
impassive  (as  shallow  people  think  Dante  stern),  receiving 
indeed  all  feelings  to  the  full,  but  having  a  great  centre  of 
reflection  and  knowledge  in  which  he  stands  serene,  and  watches 
the  feeling,  as  it  were,  from  far  off. 

Dante,  in  his  most  intense  moods,  has  entire  command  of 
himself,  and  can  look  around  calmly,  at  all  moments,  for  the 
image  or  the  word  that  will  best  tell  what  he  sees  to  the  upper 
or  lower  world.  But  Keats  and  Tennyson,  and  the  poets  of 
the  second  order,  are  generally  themselves  subdued  by  the 
feelings  under  which  they  write,  or  at  least,  write  as  choosing 
to  be  so,  and  therefore  admit  certain  expressions  and  modes  of 
thought  which  are  in  some  sort  diseased  or  false. 

Now  so  long  as  we  see  that  the  feeling  is  true,  we  pardon, 
or  are  even  pleased  by,  the  confessed  fallacy  of  sight  which  it 
induces.  But  the  moment  the  inind  of  the  speaker  becomes 
cold,  that  moment  every  such  expression  becomes  untrue,  as 
being  for  ever  untrue  in  the  external  facts.  And  there  is  no 
greater  baseness  in  literature  than  the  habit  of  using  these 
metaphorical  expressions  in  cool  blood.  An  inspired  writer, 
in  full  impetuosity  of  passion,  may  speak  wisely  and  truly  of 
"raging  waves  of  the  sea,  foaming  out  their  own  shame;"  but 
it  is  only  the  basest  writer  who  cannot  speak  of  the  sea  without 
talking  of  "  raging  waves,"  "  remorseless  floods,"  "  ravenous 
billows,"  &c. ;  and  it  is  one  of  the  signs  of  the  highest  power  in 
a  writer  to  check  all  such  habits  of  thought,  and  to  keep  his 
eyes  fixed  firmly  on  the  pure  fact^  out  of  which  if  any  feeling 
3«>mes  to  him  or  his  reader,  he  knows  it  must  be  a  true  one. 

To  keep  to  the  waves,  I  forget  who  it  is  who  represents 
a  man  in  despair,  desiring  that  his  body  may  be  cast  into  the 
sea, 

"  Whos<:  ck  inging  mound,  and  foam  that  passed  away, 
Might  mock  the  eye  that  questioned  where  1  lay." 


ACCURACY    OF    EXPRESSION.  305 

Observe,  there  is  not  a  single  false,  or  even  overcharged, 
expression.  "  Mound"  of  the  sea  wave  is  perfectly  simple  and 
true ;  "  changing  "  is  as  familiar  as  may  be ;  '*  foam  that  passed 
away,"  strictly  literal ;  and  the  whole  line  descriptive  of  the 
reality  with  a  degree  of  accuracy  which  I  know  not  any  other 
verse,  in  the  range  of  poetry,  that  altogether  equals.  For  most 
people  have  not  a  distinct  idea  of  the  clumsiness  and  massive- 
ness  of  a  large  wave.  The  word  "  wave  "  is  used  too  generally 
of  ripples  and  breakers,  and  bendings  in  light  drapery  or  grass ; 
it  does  not  by  itself  convey  a  perfect  image.  But  the  word 
"mound"  is  heavy,  large,  dark,  definite;  there  is  no  mistaking 
the  kind  of  wave  meant,  nor  missing  the  sight  of  it.  Then  the 
term  "  changing  "  has  a  peculiar  force  also.  Most  people  think 
of  waves  as  rising  and  falling.  But  if  they  look  at  the  sea 
carefully,  they  will  perceive  that  the  waves  do  not  rise  and 
fall.  They  change.  Change  both  place  and  form,  but  they 
do  not  fall ;  one  wave  goes  on,  and  on,  and  still  on  ;  now 
lower,  now  higher,  now  tossing  its  mane  like  a  horse,  now 
building  itself  together  like  a  wall,  now  shaking,  now  steady, 
but  still  the  same  wave,  till  at  last  it  seems  struck  by  something, 
and  changes,  one  knows  not  how, — becomes  another  wave. 

The  close  of  the  line  insists  on  this  image,  and  paints  it  still 
more  perfectly, — "  foam  that  passed  away."  Not  merely  melt- 
ing, disappearing,  but  passing  on,  out  of  sight,  on  the  career 
of  the  wave.  Then,  having  put  the  absolute  ocean  fact  as  far 
as  he  may  before  our  eyes,  the  poet  leaves  us  to  feel  about  it 
as  we  may,  and  to  trace  for  ourselves  the  opposite  fact, — the 
image  of  the  green  mounds  that  do  not  change,  and  the  white 
and  written  stones  that  do  not  pass  away ;  and  thence  to  follow 
out  also  the  associated  images  of  the  calm  life  with  the  quiet 
grave,  and  the  despairing  life  with  the  fading  foam ; — 

'  Let  no  man  move  his  bones." 
"  .A  s  foi  Samaria,  her  king  is  cut  off  like  the  foam  upon  the  water." 


3(>0  POETRY. 

But  nothing  of  this  is  actually  told  or  pointed  out,  and  the 
expressions,  as  they  stand,  are  perfectly  severe  and  accurate, 
utterly  uninfluenced  by  the  firmly  governed  emotion  of  the 
writer.  Even  the  word  "mock"  is  hardly  an  exception,  as  it 
may  stand  merely  for  "deceive"  or  "defeat,"  without  implying; 
any  impersonation  of  the  waves. 

It  may  be  well,  perhaps,  to  give  an  instance  to  show  the  pecu- 
liar dignity  possessed  by  all  passages  which  limit  their  expression 
to  the  pure  fact,  and  leave  the  hearer  to  gather  what  he  can 
from  it.  Here  is  a  notable  one  from  the  Iliad.  Helen,  looking 
from  the  Scaean  gate  of  Troy  over  the  Grecian  host,  and  telling 
Priam  the  names  of  its  captains,  says  at  last: — 

"  I  see  all  the  other  dark-eyed  Greeks ;  but  two  I  cannot  see, — Castor  and 
Pollux, — whom  one  mother  bore  with  me.  Have  they  not  followed  from 
fair  Lacedaemon,  or  have  they  indeed  eoine  in  their  sea-wandering  ships,  but 
now  will  not  enter  into  the  battle  of  men,  fearing  the  shame  and  the  scorn 
that  is  in  me  ?" 

Then  Homer : — 

"  So  she  spoke.  But  them,  already,  the  life-giving  earth  possessed,  there  in 
Lacedaemon,  in  the  dear  fatherland." 

Note,  here,  the  high  poetical  truth  carried  to  the  extreme. 
The  poet  has  to  speak  of  the  earth  in  sadness,  but  he  will  not 
let  the  sadness  affect  or  change  his  thoughts  of  it.  No ;  though 
Castor  and  Pollux  be  dead,  yet  the  earth  is  our  mother  still, 
fruitful,  life-giving.  These  are  the  facts  of  the  thing.  I  sec 
nothing  else  than  these,  Make  what  you  will  of  them. 

Take  another  very  notable  instance  from  Casimir  de  la  Vigne'is 
terrible  ballad,  "  La  Toilette  de  Constance."  I  must  quote  a 
few  lines  out  of  it  here  and  there,  to  enable  the  reader  who  has 
not  th«  book  by  him  to  understand  its  close. 


"  LA    TOILETTE    DE    CONSTANCE."  SO" 

4  Vite,  Anna,  vite ;  au  miroir 

Plus  vite,  Anna.     L'heure  s'avance, 
Et  je  vais  au  bal  ce  soir 
Chez  1'ambassadeur  de  France. 


X"  pensez  vous,  ils  sont  fanes,  ces  nceuds, 
Ils  sont  d'hier,  mon  Dieu,  comme  tout 

Que  du  reseau  qui  retieut  mes  cheveux 
Les  glands  d'azur  retombent  avec  grace. 


Plus  haut  1  Plus  bas !  Vous  ne  comprenez  rien ! 

Que  sur  mon  front  ce  saphir  etincelle : 
Vous  me  piquez,  mal-adroite.     Ah,  c'est  bfen, 

Bien, — chere  Anna  I  Je  t'aime,  je  suis  belle. 

Celui  qu'en  vain  je  voudrais  oublier 

(Anna,  ma  robe)  il  y  sera,  j'espere. 
(Ah,  fi,  profane,  est-ce  la  mon  collier  ? 

Quoi !  ces  grains  d'or  benits  par  le  Saint  Pdro  I) 
II  y  sera ;  Dieu,  s'il  pressait  ma  main 

En  y  pensant,  a  peine  je  respire : 
Pere  Anselmo  doit  m'entendre  demain, 

Comment  ferai-je,  Anna,  pour  tout  lui  dire? 

Vile,  in  coup  d'oeil  au  miroir, 
Le  dernier. J'ai  1'assurance 

Qu'on  va  m'adorer  ce  soir 

Chez  rambassadeur  de  France. 

Pres  du  foyer,  Constance  s'admirait. 

IMeu  1  sur  sa  robe  il  vole  une  6tincelle  I 
Au  feu.     Courez;  Quand  1'espoir  l'enivrait 

Tout  perdre  ainsi !    Quoi!   Mourir, — et  si  belle' 
L'horrible  feu  ronge  avec  volupte 

Ses  bras,  son  sein,  et  1'entoure,  et  s'eleve, 
Et  sans  pitie  devore  «a  beaute, 

Ses  dixhuit  ans,  helas,  et  sou  doux  revel 


8C8  POETRY. 

Adieu,  bal,  plaisir,  amour  1 

On  disait,  Pauvre  Constance ! 
Et  on  dunsait,  jusqu'au  jour, 

Chez  1'auibassadeur  de  France." 

Yes,  that  is  the  fact  of  it.  Right  or  wrong,  the  poet  JDCS  n  3t 
say.  What  you  may  think  about  it,  he  does  not  know.  He 
Uas  nothing  to  do  with  that.  There  lie  the  ashes  of  the  dead 
girl  in  her  chamber.  There  they  danced,  till  the  morning,  at 
the  Ambassador's  of  France.  Make  what  you  will  of  it. 

If  the  reader  will  look  through  the  ballad,  of  which  I  have 
quoted  only  about  the  third  part,  he  will  find  that  there  is 
not,  from  beginning  to  end  of  it,  a  single  poetical  (so  called) 
expression,  except  in  one  stanza.  The  girl  speaks  as  simple 
prose  as  may  be ;  there  is  not  a  word  she  would  not  have  actually 
used  as  she  was  dressing.  The  poet  stands  by,  impassive  as  a 
statue,  recording  her  words  just  as  they  come.  At  last  the 
doom  seizes  her,  and  in  the  very  presence  of  death,  for  an 
instant,  his  own  emotions  conquer  him.  lie  records  no  loi>ger 
the  facts  only,  but  the  facts  as  they  seem  to  him.  The  lire 
gnaws  with  voluptuousness — without  pity.  It  is  soon  past. 
The  fate  is  fixed  for  ever;  and  he  retires  into  his  pale  and  crystal- 
line atmosphere  of  truth.  He  closes  all  with  the  calm  veracity, 

"  They  said,  '  Poor  Constance  1' " 

Now  in  this  there  is  the  exact  type  of  the  consummate 
poetical  temperament.  For,  be  it  clearly  and  constantly  re- 
membered, thnt  the  greatness  of  a  poet  depends  upon  the  two 
faculties,  acuteness  of  feeling,  and  command  of  it.  A  poet  is 
ure.it,  first  in  proportion  to  the  strength  of  his  passion,  and 
then,  that  strength  being  granted,  in  proportion  to  his  govern- 
ment of  it ;  there  being,  however,  always  a  point  beyond  which 
it  woul  1  be  inhuman  and  monstrous  if  he  pushed  this  govern 


ACUTENESS    OF    FEELIXG.  36& 

ment,  and,  therefore,  a  point  at  which  all  feverish  and  wild  fancy 
becomes  just  and  true.  Thus  the  destruction  of  the  kingdom 
of  Assyria  cannot  be  contemplated  firmly  by  a  prophet  of 
Israel.  The  fact  is  too  great,  too  wonderful.  It  overthiowa 
him,  dashes  him  into  a  confused  element  of  dreams.  All  the 
world  is,  to  his  stunned  thought,  full  of  strange  voices.  "  Yea, 
the  fir-trees  rejoice  at  thee,  and  the  cedars  of  Lebanon,  saying, 
'  Since  thou  art  gone  down  to  the  grave,  no  feller  is  come  up 
against  us.' "  So,  still  more,  the  thought  of  the  presence  of 
Deity  cannot  be  borne  without  this  great  astonishment.  "  The 
mountains  and  the  hills  shall  break  forth  before  you  into  singing, 
and  all  the  trees  of  the  fields  shall  clap  their  hands." 

But  by  how  much  this  feeling  is  noble  when  it  is  justified  by 
the  strength  of  its  cause,  by  so  much  it  is  ignoble  when  there 
is  not  cause  enough  for  it ;  and  beyond  all  other  ignobleness  is 
the  mere  affectation  of  it,  in  hardness  of  heart.  Simply  bad 
writing  may  almost  always,  as  above  noticed,  be  known  by  its 
adoption  of  these  fanciful  metaphorical  expressions,  as  a  sort 
of  current  coin ;  yet  there  is  even  a  Avarse,  at  least  a  more 
harmful,  condition  of  writing  than  this,  in  which  such  expres- 
sions are  not  ignornntly  and  feelinglessly  caught  up,  but,  by 
some  master,  skilful  in  handling,  yet  insincere,  deliberately 
wrought  out  with  chill  and  studied  fancy;  as  if  we  should  try 
to  make  an  old  lava  stream  look  red-hot  again,  by  covering  it 
with  dead  leaves,  or  white-hot,  with  hoar-frost. 

When  Young  is  lost  in  veneration,  as  he  dwells  on  the 
character  of  a  truly  good  and  holy  man,  he  permits  him- 
Keif  for  a  moment  to  be  overborne  by  the  feeling  so  far  as  tc 
exclaim — 

"  Where  shall  I  find  him  ?  angels,  tell  me  where. 
You  kn jvr  him ;  he  is  near  you;  point  him  out 
Shall  I  see  glories  beaming  from  his  brow, 
Or  trace  his  footsteps  by  the  rising  flowers?" 
16* 


370  POETRY. 

This  emotion  has  a  worthy  cause,  and  is  thus  ti  tie  and  right. 
But  now  hear  the  cold-hearted  Pope  say  to  a  shepherd  girl— 

"  Where  :-r  you  walk,  cool  gales  shall  fan  the  glade ! 
Trees,  where  you  sit,  shall  crowd  into  a  shade ; 
Tour  praise  the  birds  shall  chant  in  every  grove, 
And  winds  shall  waft  it  to  the  powers  above. 
But  would  you  sing,  and  rival  Orpheus'  strain, 
The  wondering  forests  soon  should  dance  again ; 
The  moving  mountains  hear  the  powerful  call, 
And  headlong  streams  hang,  listening,  in  their  fall." 

This  is  not,  nor  could  it  for  a  moment  be  mistaken  for,  the 
language  of  passion.  It  is  simple  falsehood,  uttered  by  hypo- 
crisy; definite  absurdity,  rooted  in  affectation,  and  coldly 
asserted  in  the  teeth  of  nature  and  fact.  Passion  will  indeed 
go  far  in  deceiving  itself;  but  it  must  be  a  strong  passion,  not 
the  simple  wish  of  a  lover  to  tempt  his  mistress  to  sing. 
Compare  a  very  closely  parallel  passage  in  Wordsworth,  in 
which  the  lover  has  lost  his  mistress : 

"  Three  years  had  Barbara  in  her  grave  been  laid, 
When  thus  his  moan  he  made : — 

1  Oh,  move,  thou  cottage,  from  behind  yon  oak, 

Or  let  thi  ancient  tree  uprooted  lie, 
That  in  some  other  way  yon  amoke 

May  mount  into  the  sky. 
If  still  behind  you  pine-tree's  ragged  bough, 

Headlong,  the  waterfall  must  come, 

Oh,  let  it,  then,  be  dumb— 
Be  anything,  sweet  stream,  but  that  which  thou  art  now.  " 

Here  is  a  cottage  to  be  moved,  if  not  a  mountain,  and  a 
waterfall  to  be  silent,  if  it  is  not  to  hang  listening;  but  wiih 


THE   PATHETIC    FALLACY.  871 

what  different  relation  to  the  mind  that  contemplates  them  ! 
Here,  in  the  extremity  of  its  agony,  the  soul  cries  out  wiklly 
for  relief,  which  at  the  same  moment  it  partly  knows  to  be 
impossible,  but  partly  believes  possible,  in  a  vague  iinpiessiou 
that  a  miracle  might  be  wrought  to  give  relief  even  to  a  lesa 
sore  distress, — that  nature  is  kind,  and  God  is  kind,  and  that 
grief  is  strong ;  it  knows  not  well  what  is  possible  to  such 
grief.  To  silence  a  stream,  to  move  a  cottage  wall, — one 
might  think  it  could  do  as  much  as  that ! 

I  believe  these  instances  are  enough  to  illustrate  the  main 
point  I  insist  upon  respecting  the  pathetic  fallacy, — that  so 
far  as  it  is  a  fallacy,  it  is  always  the  sign  of  a  morbid  state  of 
mind,  and  comparatively  of  a  weak  one.  Even  in  the  most 
inspired  prophet  it  is  a  sign  of  the  incapacity  of  his  human 
sight  or  thought  to  bear  what  has  been  revealed  to  it.  In 
ordinary  poetry,  if  it  is  found  in  the  thoughts  of  the  poet  him- 
self, it  is  at  once  a  sign  of  his  belonging  to  the  inferior  school ; 
if  in  the  thoughts  of  the  characters  imagined  by  him,  it  is  right 
or  wrong  according  to  the  genuineness  of  tbe  emotion  from 
which  it  springs ;  always,  however,  implying  necessarily  some 
degree  of  weakness  in  the  character. 

Take  two  most  exquisite  instances  from  master  hands.  The 
Jessy  of  Shenstone,  and  the  Ellen  of  Woi'dsworth,  have  both 
been  betrayed  and  deserted.  Jessy,  in  the  course  of  her  most 
touching  complaint,  says : 

k(  If  through  the  garden's  flowery  tribes  I  stray, 

Where  bloom  the  jasmines  that  could  once  allure, 
1  Hope  not  to  find  delight  in  us,'  they  say, 
'  For  we  are  spotless,  Jessy ;  we  are  pure.1 " 

Compare  with  this  some  of  the  words  of  Ellen  : 

"  'Ah.  why,'  said  Ellen,  sighing  to  herself, 
'  Why  do  uot  words,  and  kiss,  and  solemn  pledge^ 


372  POETRY. 

A.nd  nature,  that  is  kind  in  worran's  breast, 

And  reason,  that  in  man  is  wise  and  good, 

And  fear  of  Him  who  is  a  righteous  Judge,— 

Why  do  not  these  prevail  for  human  life, 

To  keep  two  hearts  together,  that  began 

Their  springtime  with  one  love,  and  that  have  need 

Of  mutual  pity  and  forgiveness,  sweet 

To  grant,  or  be  received ;  while  that  poor  bird — 

0,  come  and  hear  him !     Thou  who  hast  to  me 

Been  faithless,  hear  him ; — though  a  lowly  creature, 

One  of  God's  simple  children,  that  yet  know  not 

The  Universal  Parent,  luow  he  sings  1 

As  if  he  wished  the  firmament  of  heaven 

Should  listen,  and  give  back  to  him  the  voice 

Of  his  triumphant  constancy  and  love. 

The  proclamation  that  he  makes,  how  far 

His  darkness  doth  transcend  our  fickle  light.'  " 

The  perfection  of  botli  these  passages,  as  far  as  regards  truth 
and  tenderness  of  imagination  in  the  two  poets,  is  quite  insu- 
perable. But,  of  the  two  characters  imagined,  Jessy  is  weaker 
than  Ellen,  exactly  in  so  far  as  something  appears  to  her  to  be 
in  nature  which  is  not.  The  flowers  do  not  really  reproach 
her.  God  meant  them  to  comfort  her,  not  to  taunt  her ;  they 
would  do  so  if  she  saw  them  rightly. 

Ellen,  on  the  other  hand,  is  quite  above  the  slightest  erring 
emotion.  There  is  not  the  barest  film  of  fallacy  in  all  her 
thoughts.  She  reasons  as  calmly  as  if  she  did  not  feel  And, 
although  the  singing  of  the  bird  suggests  to  her  the  idea  of 
its  desiring  to  be  heard  in  heaven,  she  does  not  for  an  instant 
admit  any  veracity  in  the  thought.  "  As  if,"  she  says, — "  I 
know  he  means  nothing  of  the  kind;  but  it  does  verily  seem 
as  if."  The  reader  will  find,  by  examining  the  rest  of  the 
poem,  that  Ellen's  character  is  throughout  consistent  in  this 
clear  though  passionate  strength. 


MYTHOLOGY.  378 

It  then  being,  I  hope,  now  made  clear  to  the  reader  in  all 
respects  that  the  pathetic  fallacy  is  powerful  only  so  far  as  it 
is  pathetic,  feeble  so  far  as  it  is  fallacious,  and,  therefore,  that 
the  dominion  of  Truth  is  entire,  over  this,  as  over  every  othei 
natural  and  just  state  of  the  human  mind,  we  may  go  on  to 
the  subject  for  the  dealing  with  which  this  prefatory  inquiry 
became  necessary  ;  and  why  necessary,  we  shall  see  forthwith.* 

Very  frequently  things  which  appear  to  us  ignoble  are  merely 
the  simplicities  of  a  pure  and  truthful  age.  When  Juno  beats 
Diana  about  the  ears  with  her  own  quiver,  for  instance,  we 
start  at  first,  as  if  Homer  could  not  have  believed  that  they 
were  both  real  goddesses.  But  what  should  Juno  have  done  ? 
Killed  Diana  with  a  look  ?  Xay,  she  neither  wished  to  do  so. 
nor  could  she  have  done  so,  by  the  very  faith  of  Diana's  god- 
dess-ship. Diana  is  as  immortal  as  herself.  Frowned  Diana 
into  submission?  But  Diana  has  come  expressly  to  try  con- 
clusions with  her,  and  will  by  no  means  be  frowned  into  sub- 
mission. Wounded  her  with  a  celestial  lance  ?  That  sounds 
more  poetical,  but  it  is  in  reality  partly  more  savage,  and 
partly  more  absurd,  than  Homer  More  savage,  for  it  makes 

*  I  cannot  quit  this  subject  without  giving  two  more  instances,  both  excuii 
site,  of  the  pathetic  fallacy,  which  I  have  just  come  upon,  in  Maude : 

"For  a  great  speculation  had  fail'd; 

And  ever  he  mutter'd  and  madden'd,  and  ever  wann'd  with  despair  ; 
And  out  he  walk'd,  when  the  wind  like  a  broken  worldling  wail'd, 
Aai  the  flying  gold  of  the  ruirid  woodlands  drove  thro1  Vie  air." 

"  There  has  fallen  a  splendid  tear 

From  the  passion-flower  at  the  gate. 
The  red  rose  cries,  '  She  is  near,  she  is  near? 

And  the  ivkite  rose  weeps,  '  She  is  late,' 
The  larkspur  listens,  '  I  hear,  I  hear T 

And  the  lily  whimpers, 


374  POETRY. 

Juno  more  cruel,  therefore  less  divine;  and  more  absurd,  fur 
it  only  seems  elevated  in  tone,  because  we  use  the  word 
"  celestial,"  which  means  nothing.  What  sort  of  a  thing  is  a 
"celestial"  lance?  Not  a  wooden  one.  Of  what  then?  Of 
moonbeams,  or  clouds,  or  mist.  Well,  therefore,  Diana's 
arrows  were  of  mist  too ;  and  her  quiver,  and  herself,  and 
Juno  with  her  lance,  and  all,  vanish  into  mist.  Why 
not  have  said  at  once,  if  that  is  all  you  mean,  that  two 
mists  met,  and  one  drove  the  other  back  ?  That  would 
have  been  rational  and  intelligible,  but  not  to  talk  of  celes- 
tial lances.  Homer  had  no  such  misty  fancy ;  he  believed  the 
two  goddesses  were  there  in  true  bodies,  with  true  weapons, 
011  the  true  earth ;  and  still  I  ask  what  should  Juno  have  done  ? 
Not  beaten  Diana  ?  No  ;  for  it  is  un-lady-like.  Un-English- 
iady-like,  yes ;  but  by  no  means  un-Greek-lady-like,  nor  even 
an-natural-lady-like.  If  a  modern  lady  does  not  beat  her  ser- 
vant or  her  rival  about  the  ears,  it  is  oftener  because  she  is  too 
weak,  or  too  proud,  than  because  she  is  of  purer  mind  than 
Homer's  Juno.  She  will  not  strike  them;  but  she  will  over- 
work the  one  or  slander  the  other  without  pity ;  and  Homer 
would  not  have  thought  that  one  whit  more  goddess-like  than 
striking  them  with  her  open  hand. 

What,  then,  was  actually  the  Greek  god  ?  In  what  way 
were  these  two  ideas  of  human  form,  and  divine  power,  credi- 
bly associated  in  the  ancient  heart,  so  as  to  become  a  subject 
of  true  faith,  irrespective  equally  of  fable,  allegory,  supersti- 
tious trust  in  stone,  and  demoniacal  influence? 

It  sepms  to  me  that  the  Greek  had  exactly  the  same  instinct- 
ive feeling  about  the  elements  that  \ve  have  ourselves  ;  that  to 
Homer,  as  much  as  to  Casimir  de  la  Vigne,  fire  seemed  raven 
ous  and  pitiless;  to  Homer,  as  much  as  to  Keats,  the  sea-wave 
appeared  wayward  or  idle,  or  whatever  else  it  may  be  to  the 
poetical  passion.  The  Greek  never  removed  his  god  out  of 


MYTHOLOGY.  375 

natuie  at  all;  never  attempted  for  a  moment  to  contradict  his 
instinctive  sense  that  God  was  everywhere.  "The  tree  is  glad," 
said  he,  "  I  know  it  is ;  I  can  cut  it  down  ;  no  matter,  there 
was  a  nymph  in  it.  The  water  does  sing,"  said  he ;  "I  can 
dry  it  up ;  but  no  matter,  there  was  a  naiad  in  it."  But  in 
thus  clearly  defining  his  belief,  observe,  he  threw  it  entirely 
into  a  human  form,  and  gave  his  faith  to  nothing  but  the 
image  of  his  own  humanity.  What  sympathy  and  fellowship 
ne  had,  were  always  for  the  spirit  in  the  stream,  not  for  the 
stream ;  always  for  the  dryad  in  the  wood,  not  for  the  wood. 
Content  with  this  human  sympathy,  he  approached  the  actual 
waves  and  woody  fibres  with  no  sympathy  at  all.  The  spirit 
that  ruled  them,  he  received  as  a  plain  fact.  Them,  also,  ruled 
and  material,  he  received  as  plain  facts;  they,  without  their 
spirit,  were  dead  enough.  A  rose  was  good  for  scent,  and  a 
stream  for  sound  and  coolness ;  for  the  rest,  one  was  no  more 
than  leaves,  the  other  no  more  than  water ;  he  could  not  make 
anything  else  of  them  ;  and  the  divine  power  which  waa 
involved  in  their  existence,  having  been  all  distilled  away  by 
him  into  an  independent  Flora  or  Thetis,  the  poor  leaves  or 
waves  were  left,  in  mere  cold  corporealness,  to  make  the  most 
of  their  being  discernibly  red  and  soft,  clear  and  wet,  and  un- 
acknowledged in  any  other  power  whatsoever. 

Then,  observe  farther,  the  Greeks  lived  in  the  midst  of  the 
most  beautiful  nature,  and  were  as  familiar  with  blue  sea,  clear 
air,  and  sweet  outlines  of  mountain,  as  we  are  with  brick  walls, 
black  smoke,  and  level  fields.  This  perfect  familiai-ity  rendered 
all  such  scenes  of  natural  beauty  unexciting,  if  not  indifferent 
to  them,  by  lulling  and  overwearying  the  imagination  as  far  as 
it  was  concerned  with  such  things;  but  there  was  another 
kind  of  beauty  which  they  found  it  required  effort  to  obtain, 
and  which,  when  thoroughly  obtained,  seemed  more  glorious 
•Inn  any  of  this  wild  lovelin:ss — the  beauty  of  the  human 


376  POETRY. 

countenance  and  form.  This,  they  perceived,  could  only  be 
reached  by  continual  exercise  of  virtue;  and  it  \vas  in  Heaven's 
sight,  and  theirs,  all  the  more  beautiful  because  it  needed  this 
self-denial  to  obtain  it.  So  they  set  themselves  to  reach  this, 
and  having  gained  it,  gave  it  their  principal  thoughts,  and  set 
it  off  with  beautiful  dress  as  best  they  might.  But  making 
this  then  object,  they  were  obliged  to  pass  their  lives  in  sim 
pie  exercise  and  disciplined  employments.  Living  wholesomely, 
giving  themselves  no  fever  fits',  either  by  fasting  or  over-eating, 
constantly  in  the  open  air,  and  full  of  animal  spirit  and  physi- 
cal power,  they  became  incapable  of  every  morbid  condition 
of  mental  emotion.  Unhappy  love,  disappointed  ambition, 
spiritual  despondency,  or  any  other  disturbing  sensation,  had 
little  power  over  the  well-braced  nerves,  and  healthy  flow  of 
the  blood ;  and  what  bitterness  might  yet  fasten  on  them  was 
soon  boxed  or  raced  out  of  a  boy,  and  spun  or  woven  out  of 
a  girl,  or  danced  out  of  both.  They  had  indeed  their  sorrows, 
true  and  deep,  but  still,  more  like  children's  sorrows  than  ours, 
whether  bursting  into  open  cry  of  pain,  or  hid  with  shudder- 
ing under  the  veil,  still  passing  over  the  soul  as  clouds  do  over 
heaven,  not  sullying  it,  not  mingling  with  it ; — darkening  it  per- 
haps long  or  utterly,  but  still  not  becoming  one  with  it,  and  foi 
the  most  part  passing  away  in  dashing  rain  of  tears,  and  leaving 
the  man  unchanged ;  in  nowise  affecting,  as  our  sorrow  does,  the 
whole  tone  of  his  thought  and  imagination  thenceforward. 
How  far  our  melancholy  may  be  deeper  and  wider  than 
theirs,  in  its  roots  and  view,  and  therefore  nobler,  MO  shall 
consider  presently ;  but  at  all  events,  they  had  the  advantage 
of  us  in  being  entirely  free  from  all  those  dim  and  feverish 
sensations  which  result  from  unhealthy  state  of  the  body.  I 
believB  that  a  large  amount  of  the  dreamy  and  sentimentaJ 
sadness,  tendency  to  reverie,  and  general  patheticalness  of 
modern  life  results  merely  from  derangement  of  stomach; 


TASTE   IN    LITERATURE.  37? 

holding  to  the  Greek  life  the  same  relation  that  the  feverish 
night  of  an  adult  does  to  a  child's  sleep. 

Farther.  The  human  beauty,  which,  whether  in  its  bodily 
being  or  in  imagined  divinity,  had  become,  for  the  reasons 
we  have  seen,  the  principai  object  of  culture  and  sympathy 
to  these  Greeks,  was,  in  its  perfection,  eminently  orderly 
symmetrical,  and  tender.  Hence,  contemplating  it  constantly 
in  this  state,  they  could  not  but  feel  a  proportionate  fear  of 
all  that  was  disorderly,  unbalanced,  and  rugged.  Having 
trained  their  stoutest  soldiers  into  a  strength  so  delicate  and 
lovely,  that  their  white  flesh,  with  their  blood  upon  it,  should 
look  like  iv,ory  stained  with  purple  ;*  and  having  always  around 
them,  in  the  motion  and  majesty  of  this  beauty,  enough  for 
the  full  employment  of  their  imagination,  they  shrank  with 
dread  or  hatred  from  all  the  ruggedness  of  lower  nature, — • 
from  the  wrinkled  forest  bark,  the  jagged  hill-crest,  and  irre- 
gular, inorganic  storm  of  sky ;  looking  to  these  for  the  most 
part  as  adverse  powers,  and  taking  pleasure  only  in  such  por- 
tions of  the  lower  world  as  were  at  once  conducive  to  the  rest 
and  health  of  the  human  frame,  and  in  harmony  with  the  laws 
of  its  gentler  beauty. 

I  know  many  persons  who  have  the  purest  taste  m 
literature,  and  yet  false  taste  in  art,  and  it  is  a  phenomenon 
which  puzzles  me  not  a  little  ;  but  I  have  never  known  any  one 
with  false  taste  in  books,  and  true  taste  m  pictures.  It  is  also 
of  the  greatest  importance  to  you,  not  only  for  art's  sake,  but 
for  all  kinds  of  sake,  in  these  days  of  book  deluge,  to  keep 
out  of  the  salt  swamps  of  literature,  and  live  on  a  little  rocky 
island  of  your  own,  with  a  spring  and  a  lake  in  it,  pure  and 
good.  I  cannot,  of  coirse,  suggest  the  choice  of  yjur  library 

» Iliad  iv.  141. 


878  POETRY. 

to  you,  every  several  mind  needs  different  books ;  but  there 
are  some  books  which  we  all  need,  and  assuredly,  if  you  read 
Homer,*  Plato,  ^Eschylus,  Herodotus,  Dante,  f  Shakspeare,  and 
Sponsor,  as  much  as  you  ought,  you  will  not  require  wide 
enlargement  of  shelves  to  right  and  left  of  them  for  purposes 
of  perpetual  study.  Among  modem  books,  avoid  generally 
magazine  and  review  literature.  Sometimes  it  may  contain  a 
useful  abridgement  or  a  wholesome  piece  of  criticism;  but  the 
chances  are  ten  to  one  it  will  either  waste  your  time  or  mislead 
you.  If  you  want  to  understand  any  subject  whatever,  read 
the  best  book  upon  it  you  can  hear  of;  not  a  review  of  the 
book.  If  you  don't  like  the  first  book  you  try,  seek  for  another ; 
but  do  not  hope  ever  to  understand  the  subject  without  pains, 
by  a  reviewer's  help.  Avoid  especially  that  class  of  literature 
which  has  a  knowing  tone ;  it  is  the  most  poisonous  of  all. 
Every  good  book,  or  piece  of  book,  is  full  of  admiration  and 
awe ;  it  may  contain  firm  assertion,  or  stern  satire,  but  it  never 
sneers  coldly,  nor  asserts  haughtily,  and  it  always  leads 
you  to  reverence  or  love  something  with  your  whole  heart. 
It  is  not  always  easy  to  distinguish  the  satire  of  the  venomous 
race  of  books  from  the  satire  of  the  noble  and  pure  ones;  but 
in  general  you  may  notice  that  the  cold-blooded  Crustacean 
and  Batrachian  books  will  sneer  at  sentiment ;  and  the  warm- 
blooded, human  books,  at  sin.  Then,  hi  general,  the  more  you 
can  restrain  your  serious  reading  to  reflective  or  lyric  poetry, 
history,  and  natural  history,  avoiding  fiction  and  the  drama, 

*  Chapman's,  if  not  the  original. 

f  Carey's  or  Cayley'q,  if  not  the  original.  I  do  not  know  which  are  the  best 
translations  of  Plato.  He/odotus  ana  vEschylus  can  only  be  read  ir.  the  origi- 
nal It  may  seem  strange  that  I  name  books  like  these'for  "beginners:"  but 
all  the  greatest  books  contain  food  for  all  ages;  and  an  intelligent  and  rightlj 
bred  youth  or  girl  ought  to  enjoy  much,  even  in  Plutu,  by  the  time  they  art 
fifi«eii  or  sixteen. 


SUGGESTIONS    FOR    READING.  379 

the  healthier  your  mind  will  become.  Of  modern  poetry  keep 
to  Scott,  Wordsworth,  Keats,  Crabbe,  Tenuysou,  the*  two 
Brownings,  Lowell,  Longfellow,  and  Coventry  Patmore,  whose 
'  Angel  in  the  House"  is  a  most  finished  piece  of  writing,  anil 
the  sweetest  analysis  we  possess  of  quiet  modern  domestic 
feeling ;  while  Mrs.  Browning's  "  Aurora  Leigh"  is,  as  far  as 
I  know,  the  greatest  poem  which  the  century  has  produced  hi 
any  language.  Cast  Coleridge  at  once  aside,  as  sickly  and 
useless ;  and  Shelley,  as  shallow  and  verbose ;  Byron,  until 
your  taste  is  fully  formed,  and  you  are  able  to  discern  the 
magnificence  in  him  from  the  wrong.  Never  read  bad  or  com- 
mon poetry,  nor  write  any  poetry  yourself;  there  is,  perhaps, 
rather  too  much  than  too  little  in  the  world  already. 

Of  reflective  prose,  read  chiefly  Bacon,  Johnson,  and  Helps. 
Carlyle  is  hardly  to  DO  named  as  a  writer  for  "  beginners," 
because  his  teaching,  though  to  some  of  us  vitally  necessary, 
may  to  others  be  hurtful.  If  you  understand  and  like  him, 
read  him  ;  if  he  offends  you,  you  are  not  yet  ready  for  him, 
and  perhaps  may  never  be  so ;  at  all  events,  give  him  up,  as 
you  would  sea-bathing  if  you  found  it  hurt  you,  till  you  are 
stronger.  Of  fiction,  read  Sir  Charles  Grandison,  Scott's 
novels,  Miss  Edgeworth's,  and,  if  you  are  a  young  lady, 
Madame  de  Genlis',  the  French  Miss  Edgeworth ;  making 
these,  I  mean,  your  constant  companions.  Of  course  you  must, 
or  will,  read  other  books  for  amusement,  once  or  twice ;  but 
you  will  find  that  these  have  an  element  of  perpetuity  in  them, 
existing  in  nothing  else  of  their  kind ;  while  their  peculiar 
quietness  and  repose  of  manner  will  also  be  of  the  greatest 
value  in  teaching  you  to  feel  the  same  characters  in  art.  Read 
little  at  a  time,  trying  to  feel  interest  in  little  things,  and  read- 
ing not  so  much  for  the  sake  of  the  story  as  to  get  acquainted 
with  the  pleasant  people  into  whose  company  these  writers 
bring  you.  A  common  book  will  often  give  you  much  amuse- 


380  POKTRY 

ment,  but  it  is  only  a  noble  book  which  will  give  you  dear 
Mentis.  Remember  also  that  it  is  of  less  importance  to  you  iu 
your  earlier  years,  that  the  books  you  read  should  be  clever 
than  that  they  should  be  right.  I  do  not  mean  oppressively  01 
repulsively  instructive;  but  that  the  thoughts  they  express 
should  be  just,  and  the  feelings  they  excite  generous.  It  is  not 
necessary  for  you  to  read  the  wittiest  or  the  most  suggestive 
books :  it  is  better,  in  general,  to  hear  what  is  already  known, 
and  may  be  simply  said.  Much  of  the  literature  of  the 
present  day,  though  good  to  be  read  by  persons  of  ripe  age, 
has  a  tendency  to  agitate  rather  than  confirm,  and  leaves  its 
readers  too  frequently  in  a  helpless  or  hopeless  indignation, 
the  worst  possible  state  into  which  the  mind  of  youth  can  bo 
thrown.  It  may,  indeed,  become  necessary  for  you,  as  you 
advance  in  life,  to  set  your  hand  to  things  that  need  to  be 
altered  in  the  world,  or  apply  your  heart  chiefly  to  what  must 
be  pitied  in  it,  or  condemned ;  but,  for  a  young  person,  the 
safest  temper  is  one  of  reverence,  and  the  safest  place  one  of 
obscurity.  Certainly  at  present,  and  perhaps  through  all  your 
life,  your  teachers  are  wisest  when  they  make  you  content  in 
quiet  virtue,  and  that  literature  and  art  are  best  for  you  which 
point  out,  in  common  life  and  familiar  things,  the  objects  for 
hopeful  labor,  and  for  humble  love. 


flart  7 
MORAJLS 


Next  to  Sincerity,  remember  still, 

Thou  must  resolve  upon  Liteyrity. 

God  will  have  all  thou  haist ;  thy  mind,  thy  will, 

Thy  thoughts,  thy  words,  thy  works. 

GEORGE  HERBERT. 


flart  7. 

MORALS  AND  RELIGION. 

TUB  Bible  is  specifically  distinguished  from  all  other  early 
literature,  by  its  delight  in  natural  imagery;  and  the  deal- 
ings of  God  with  his  people  are  calculated  peculiarly  to 
awaken  this  sensibility  within  them.  Out  of  the  monotonoua 
valley  of  Egypt  they  are  instantly  taken  into  the  midst  of  the 
mightiest  mountain  scenery  in  the  peninsula  of  Arabia ;  and  that 
scenery  is  associated  in  their  minds  with  the  immediate  mani- 
festation and  presence  of  the  Divine  Power ;  so  that  mountains 
for  ever  afterwards  become  invested  with  a  peculiar  sacredness 
in  their  minds ;  while  their  descendants  being  placed  in  what  was 
then  one  of  the  loveliest  districts  upon  the  earth,  full  of  glorious 
vegetation,  bounded  on  one  side  by  the  sea,  on  the  north  by 
"  that  goodly  mountain  "  Lebanon,  on  the  south  and  east  by 
deserts,  whose  barrenness  enhanced  by  their  contrast  the  sense 
of  the  perfection  of  beauty  in  their  own  land,  they  became,  by 
these  means,  and  by  the  touch  of  God's  own  hand  upon  their 
hearts,  sensible  to  the  appeal  of  natural  scenery  in  a  way  in 
which  no  other  people  were  at  the  time ;  and  their  literature 
is  full  of  expressions,  not  only  testifying  a  vivid  sense  of  the 
power  of  nature  over  man,  but  showing  that  sympathy  with 
natural  things  themselves,  as  if  they  had  human  souls,*  which  ia 
the  especial  characteristic  of  true  love  of  the  works  of  God.  I 
intended  to  have  insisted  on  this  sympathy  at  greater  length, 
but  I  found,  only  two  or  three  days  ago,  much  of  what  I  had 
to  say  to  you  anticipated  in  a  little  book,  unpretending,  but 


384  MORALS    AND    RELIGION. 

full  of  interest,  "The  Lamp  and  the  Lantern,"  by  Dr.  James 
Hamilton ;  and  I  will  therefore  only  ask  you  to  consider  such 
expressions  as  that  tender  and  giorious  verse  in  Isaiah,  speaking 
of  the  cedars  on  the  mountains  as  rejoicing  over  the  fall  of  the 
king  of  Assyria  :  "  Yea,  the  fir-trees  rejoice  at  thee,  and  the 
cedars  of  Lebanon,  saying,  Since  thou  art  gone  down  to  the 
grave,  no  feller  is  come  up  against  us."  See  what  sympathy 
there  is  here,  as  if  with  the  very  hearts  of  the  trees  themselves, 
So  also  in  the  words  of  Christ,  in  his  personification  of  the  lilies  ' 
"  They  toil  not,  neither  do  they  spin."  Consider  such  expres- 
sions as,  "  The  sea  saw  that,  and  fled.  Jordan  was  driven  back. 
The  mountains  skipped  like  rams ;  and  the  little  hills  like 
lambo."  Try  to  find  anything  in  profane  writing  like  this ;  and 
note  farther  that  the  whole  book  of  Job  appears  to  have  been 
chiefly  written  and  placed  in  the  inspired  volume  in  order  to 
show  the  value  of  natural  history,  and  its  power  on  the  human 
heart.  I  cannot  pass  by  it  without  pointing  out  the  evidences 
of  the  beauty  of  the  country  that  Job  inhabited. 

Observe,  first,  it  was  an  arable  country.  "  The  oxen  were 
ploughing,  and  the  asses  feeding  beside  them."  It  was  a  pastoral 
country:  his  substance,  besides  camels  and  asses,  was  7000  sheep. 
It  was  a  mountain  country,  fed  by  streams  descending  from  the 
high  snows.  "  My  brethren  have  dealt  deceitfully  as  a  brook, 
and  as  the  stream  of  brooks  they  pass  away ;  which  are  blackish 
by  reason  of  the  ice,  and  wherein  the  snow  is  hid :  What  time 
they  wax  warm  they  vanish :  when  it  is  hot  they  are  consumed 
out  of  their  place."  Again :  "  If  I  wash  myself  with  snow 
water,  and  make  my  hands  never  so  clean."  Again :  "Drought 
and  heat  consume  the  snow  waters."  It  was  a  rocky  country, 
with  forests  and  -verdure  rooted  in  the  rocks.  "His  branch 
Bhooteth  forth  in  his  garden ;  his  roots  are  wrapped  about  the 
heap,  and  seeth  the  place  of  stones."  Again :  "  Thou  shalt  be 
in  league  with  the  stones  of  the  field."  It  was  a  place  visited, 


SYMPATHY    WITH    NATURAL   THINGS.  385 

like  tlie  valleys  of  Switzerland,  by  convulsions  and  falls  of 
mountains.  "  Surely  the  mountain  falling  comcth  to  nought 
and  the  rock  is  removed  out  of  his  place."  "  The  waters  wear 
the  stones:  thou  washest  away  the  things  which  grow  out  of 
the  dust  of  the  earth."  "He  removeth  the  mountains  and 
they  know  not :  he  overturned!  them  in  his  anger."  "  He 
putteth  forth  his  hand  upon  the  rock :  he  overturneth  the 
mountains  by  the  roots:  he  cutteth  out  rivers  among  the  rocks." 
I  have  not  time  to  go  farther  into  this;  but  you  see  Job's  country 
was  one  like  your  own,  full  of  pleasant  brooks  and  rivers,  rushing 
among  the  rocks,  and  of  all  other  sweet  and  noble  elements 
of  landscape.  The  magnificent  allusions  to  natural  scenery 
throughout  the  book  are  therefore  calculated  to  toach  the  heart 
to  the  end  of  time. 

Then  at  the  central  point  of  Jewish  prosperity,  }rou  have  tlie 
first  great  naturalist  the  world  ever  saw,- Solomon  ,  not  permit- 
ted, indeed,  to  anticipate,  in  writing,  the  discoveries  of  modem 
times,  but  so  gifted  as  to  show  us  that  heavenly  wisdom  is 
manifested  as  much  in  the  knowledge  of  the  hyssop  that 
springeth  out  of  the  wall  as  in  political  and  philosophical 
speculation. 

The  books  of  the  Old  Testament,  as  distinguished  from  all 
other  early  writings,  are  thus  prepared  for  an  everlasting 
influence  over  humanity ;  and,  finally,  Christ  himself,  setting 
the  concluding  example  to  the  conduct  and  thoughts  of  men, 
spends  nearly  his  whole  life  in  the  fields,  the  mountains,  or  the 
small  country  villages  of  Judea ;  and  in  the  very  closing  scenes 
of  his  life,  will  not  so  much  as  sleep  within  the  walls  of  Jerusalem, 
but  rests  at  the  little  village  of  Bethphage,  walking  in  the 
morning,  and  returning  in  the  evening,  through  the  peaceful 
avenues  of  the  mount  of  Olives,  to  and  from  his  work  of 
teaching  in  the  temple. 

It  would  thus  naturally  follow,  both  from  the  general  tone 

17 


386  MORALS    AND    RELIGION1. 

and  teaching  of  the  Scriptures,  and  from  the  example  of  OUT 
Lord  himself,  that  wherever  Christianity  was  preached  and 
accepted,  there  would  be  an  immediate  interest  awakened  in 
the  works  of  God,  as  seen  in  the  natural  world. 

The  whole  force  of  education,  until  very  lately,  has  been 
directed  in  every  possible  way  to  the  destruction  of  the  love  of 
nature.  The  only  knowledge  which  has  been  considered  essen- 
tial among  us  is  that  of  words,  and,  next  after  it,  of  the  abstract 
sciences ;  while  every  liking  shown  by  children  for  simple  nat  ural 
history  has  been  either  violently  checked,  (if  it  took  an  incon 
venient  form  for  the  housemaids,)  or  else  scrupulously  limited 
to  hours  of  play :  so  that  it  has  really  been  impossible  for  any 
child  earnestly  to  study  the  works  of  God  but  against  its  con- 
science ;  and  the  love  of  nature  has  become  inherently  the 
characteristic  of  truants  and  idlers.  While  also  the  ait  of 
drawing,  which  is  of  more  real  importance  to  the  human  race 
than  that  of  writing  (because  people  can  hardly  draw  anything 
without  being  of  some  use  both  to  themselves  and  others,  and 
can  hardly  write  anything  without  wasting  their  own  time  and 
that  of  others), — this  art  of  drawing,  I  say,  which  on  plain  and 
stern  system  should  be  taught  to  every  child,  just  as  writing 
is, — has  been  so  neglected  and  abused,  that  there  is  not  one 
man  in  a  thousand,  even  of  its  professed  teachers,  who  knows 
its  first  principles :  and  thus  it  needs  much  ill-fortune  or  obsti- 
nacy— much  neglect  on  the  part  of  his  teachers,  or  rebellion 
on  his  own — before  a  boy  can  get  leave  to  use  his  eyes  or  his 
fingers  ;  so  that  those  who  can  use  them  are  for  the  most  part 
neglected  or  rebellious  lads — runaways  and  bad  scholars — pas- 
sionate, erratic,  self-willed,  and  restive  against  all  forms  of 
education  ;  while  your  well-behaved  and  amiable  scholars  are 
disciplined  into  blindness  and  palsy  of  half  their  iiirultk's. 
Wherein  there  is  at  once  a  notable  ground  for  what  difference 


LOVE    OF    XATTKK.  387 

<ve  have  observed  between  the  lovers  of  nature  and  its  despis 
ers ;  between  the  somewhat  immoral  and  unrespectable  vi  atch- 
fulness  of  the  one,  and  the  inora]  and  respectable  blindness  oi 
the  other. 

One  more  argument  remains,  and  that,  I  believe,  an  unanswer- 
able one.  As,  by  the  accident  of  education,  the  love  of  nature 
has  been,  among  us,  associated  with  "jcilf \ilness,  so,  by  the 
accident  of  time,  it  has  been  associated  with  faithlessness.  I 
traced,  above,  the  peculiar  mode  in  which  this  faithlessness  wsa 
indicated  ;  but  I  never  intended  to  imply,  therefore,  that  it  was 
an  invariable  concomitant  of  the  love.  Because  it  happens  that, 
by  various  concurrent  operations  of  evil,  we  have  been  led, 
according  to  those  words  of  the  Greek  poet  already  quoted, 
"  to  dethrone  the  gods,  and  crown  the  whirlwind,"  it  is  no 
reason  that  we  should  forget  there  was  once  a  time  when  "the 
Lord  answered  Job  out  of  the  whirlwind."  And  if  we  now 
take  final  and  full  view  of  the  matter,  we  shall  find  that  the 
love  of  nature,  wherever  it  lias  existed,  has  been  a  faithful  and 
sacred  element  of  human  feeling ;  that  is  to  say,  supposing  all 
circumstances  otherwise  the  same  with  respect  to  two  indivi 
duals,  the  one  who  loves  nature  most  will  be  always  found  to 
have  more  faith  in  God  than  the  other.  It  is  intensely  difficult, 
owing  to  the  confusing  and  counter  influences  which  always 
mingle  in  the  data  of  the  problem,  to  make  this  abstraction 
fairly  ;  but  so  far  as  we  can  do  it,  so  far,  I  boldly  assert,  the  result 
is  constantly  the  same:  the  nature-worship  will  be  found  to  bring 
with  it  such  a  sense  of  the  presence  and  power  of  a  Great  Spirit 
ns  no  mere  reasoning  can  either  induce  or  controvert;  and 
where  that  nature-worship  is  innocently  pursued, — i.e.  \\ith 
due  respect  to  other  claims  on  time,  feeling,  and  exertion,  and 
associated  with  the  higher  principles  of  religion, — it  becomes 
the  channel  of  certain  sacred  truths,  which  by  no  other  means 
cnv  be  conveyed. 


388  MORALS    AND   RELIGION. 

IVis  is  not  a  statement  which  any  investigation  is  needed  to 
prove.  It  comes  to  us  at  once  from  the  highest  of  all  authority 
The  greater  number  of  the  words  which  are  recorded  in 
Scripture,  as  directly  spoken  to  men  by  the  lips  of  the  Deity, 
are  either  simple  revelations  of  His  law,  or  special  threatenings, 
commands,  and  promises  relating  to  special  events.  But  two 
passages  of  God's  speaking,  one  in  the  Old  and  one  in  the 
New  Testament,  possess,  it  seems  to  me,  a  different  character 
from  any  of  the  rest,  having  been  uttered,  the  one  to  effect  the 
last  necessary  change  in  the  mind  of  a  man  whose  piety  was  in 
other  respects  perfect ;  and  the  other,  as  the  h'rst  statement  to 
ftll  men  of  the  principles  of  Christianity  by  Christ  Himself— 
I  mean  the  38th  to  41st  chapters  of  the  book  of  Job,  and  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount.  Now,  the  first  of  these  passages  is, 
from  beginning  to  end,  nothing  else  than  a  direction  of  the 
•iiind  which  was  to  be  perfected  to  humble  observance  to  the 
ivorks  of  God  in  nature.  And  the  other  consists  only  in  the 
inculcation  of  three  things :  1st,  right  conduct;  2nd,  looking 
for  eternal  life ;  3rd,  trusting  God,  through  wat  chilliness  of  His 
dealings  with  His  creation :  and  the  entire  contents  of  the  book 
of  Job,  and  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  will  be  found  resolv- 
able simply  into  these  three  requirements  from  all  men, — that 
they  should  act  rightly,  hope  for  heaven,  and  watch  God's 
wonders  and  work  in  the  earth  ;  the  right  conduct  being  always 
summed  up  under  the  three  heads  of  justice,  mercy,  and  truth, 
and  no  mention  of  any  doctrical  point  whatsoever  occurring  in 
either  piece  of  divine  teaching. 

As  far  as  I  can  judge  of  the  ways  of  men,  it  seems  to  me  that 
the  simplest  and  most  necessary  truths  are  always  the  last 
believed ;  and  I  suppose  that  well-meaning  people  in  general 
would  rather  regu-ate  tlulr  conduct  and  creed  by  almost  any 
other  portion  of  Scripture  whatsoever,  than  by  that  Sermon  on 
the  Mount  which  contains  the  things  that  Christ  thought  it  lirsJ 


MODERN   PROGRESS.  380 

necessary  for  all  men  to  understand.  Nevertheless,  I  be' leva 
the  time  will  soon  come  for  the  full  force  of  these  two  passages 
of  S<  ripture  to  be  accepted.  Instead  of  supposing  the  love  of 
nature  necessarily  connected  with  the  faithlessness  of  the  age, 
I  believe  it  is  connected  properly  with  the  benevolence  and 
liberty  of  the  age  ;  that  it  is  precisely  the  most  healthy  element 
which  distinctively  belongs  to  us ;  and  that  out  of  it,  cultivated 
no  longer  in  levity  or  ignorance,  but  in  earnestness  and  as  a 
duty,  results  will  spring  of  an  importance  at  present  incon- 
ceivable ;  and  lights  arise,  which,  for  the  first  time  in  man's 
history,  will  reveal  to  him  the  true  nature  of  his  life,  the  true 
field  for  his  energies,  and  the  true  relations  between  him  and 
his  Maker. 

I  will  not  endeavor  here  to  trace  the  various  modes  in  which 
these  results  are  likely  to  be  effected,  for  this  would  involve  an 
essay  on  education,  on  the  uses  of  natural  history,  and  the 
probable  future  destiny  of  nations.  Somewhat  on  these  subjects 
I  have  spoken  in  other  places ;  and  I  hope  to  find  time,  and 
proper  place,  to  say  more.  But  one  or  two  observations  may 
be  made  merely  to  suggest  the  directions  in  which  the  reader 
may  follow  out  the  subject  for  himself. 

The  great  mechanical  impulses  of  the  age,  of  which  most  of 
us  are  so  proud,  are  a  mere  passing  fever,  half-speculative, 
haH'-chiklish.  People  will  discover  at  last  that  royal  roads  to 
anything  can  no  more  be  laid  in  iron  than  they  can  in  dust ;  that 
there  are,  in  fact,  no  royal  roads  to  anywhere  worth  going  to ; 
that  if  there  were,  it  would  that  instant  cease  to  be  worth 
£omg  to, — I  mean  so  far  as  the  things  to  be  obtained  are  in  any 
way  estimable  in  terms  of  price.  For  there  are  two  classes  of 
preciouf  things  in  the  world:  those  that  God  gives  us  for 
nothing—  sun,  air,  and  life  (both  mortal  life  and  immortal) ; 
and  the  secondarily  precious  things  which  he  gives  us  for  a 
price :  these  secondarily  precious  things,  worldly  wine  and  milk, 


390  MORALS    AND    RELIGION. 

can  only  be  bought  for  definite  money;  they  never  can  b€ 
cheapened.  No  cheating  nor  bargaining  will  ever  get  a  single 
thing  out  of  nature's  "  establishment "  at  half-price.  Do  we 
want  to  be  strong  ? — we  must  work.  To  be  hungry  ? — we 
must  starve.  To  be  happy  ? — we  must  be  kind.  To  be  wise  ? 
—we  must  look  and  think.  No  changing  of  place  at  a  Imndicd 
miles  an  hour,  nor  making  of  stuffs  a  thousand  yards  a  minute, 
will  make  us  one  whit  stronger,  happier,  or  wiser.  There  was 
always  more  in  the  world  than  men  could  see,  walked  they  ever 
BO  slowly ;  they  will  see  it  no  better  for  going  fast.  And  they 
will  at  last,  and  soon  too,  find  out  that  their  grand  inventions 
for  conquering  (as  they  think)  space  and  time,  do,  in  reality, 
conquer  nothing  ;  for  space  and  time  are,  in  their  own  essence, 
unconquerable,  and  besides  did  not  want  any  sort  of  conquering; 
they  wanted  using.  A  fool  always  wants  to  shorten  space  and 
time :  a  wise  man  wants  to  lengthen  both.  A  fool  wants  to  kill 
space  and  kill  time:  a  wise  man,  first  to  gain  them,  then  to 
animate  them.  Your  railroad,  when  you  come  to  understand 
it,  is  only  a  device  for  making  the  world  smaller :  and  as  for 
being  able  to  talk  from  place  to  place,  that  is,  indeed,  well  and 
convenient ;  but  suppose  you  have,  originally,  nothing  to  say.* 
We  shall  be  obliged  at  last  to  confess,  what  we  should  long 
ago  have  known,  that  the  really  precious  things  are  thought 
and  sight,  not  pace.  It  does  a  bullet  no  good  to  go  fast ;  and 
a  man,  no  harm  to  go  slow ;  for  his  glory  is  not  at  all  in  going, 
but  in  being. 

u  Well ;  but  railroads  and  telegraphs  are  so  useful  for  com- 
rmnicating  knowledge  to  savage  nations."  Yes,  if  you  have 
any  to  give  them.  If  you  know  nothing  bat  railroads,  and 
can  communicate  nothing  but  aqueous  vapor  and  gunpowder 

*  "  The  liglit-outspeeding  telegraph 

Bears  nctl>infe  on  its  beam."         EMEUSOK. 


MODERN    PROGRESS.  391 

-what  then  ?  But  if  you  have  any  other  thing  than  these  to 
give,  then  the  railroad  is  of  use  only  because  it  communicates 
that  other  thing ;  and  the  question  is — what  that  other  thing 
may  be.  Is  it  religion  ?  I  believe  if  we  had  really  wanted  to 
communicate  that,  we  could  have  done  it  in  less  than  1 800 
years,  without  steam.  Most  of  the  good  religious  communica 
tion  that  I  remember  has  been  done  on  foot ;  and  it  cannot  be 
easily  done  faster  than  at  foot  pace.  Is  it  science?  But 
what  science — of  motion,  meat,  and  medicine  ?  Well ;  when 
you  have  moved  your  savage,  and  dressed  your  savage,  fed 
him  with  white  bread,  and  shown  him  how  to  set  a  limb, — 
what  next  ?  Follow  out  that  question.  Suppose  every  obsta- 
cle overcome ;  give  your  savage  every  advantage  of  civilization 
to  the  full ;  suppose  that  you  have  put  the  red  Indian  in  tight 
shoes;  taught  the  Chinese  how  to  make  Wedgwood's  ware, 
and  to  paint  it  with  colors  that  will  rub  off;  and  persuaded 
all  Hindoo  women  that  it  is  more  pious  to  torment  their  hus- 
bands into  graves  than  to  burn  themselves  at  the  burial, — 
what  next?  Gradually,  thinking  on  from  point  to  point,  we 
shall  come  to  perceive  that  all  true  happiness  and  nobleness 
are  near  us,  and  yet  neglected  by  us;  and  that  till  we  have 
learned  how  to  be  happy  and  noble,  we  have  not  much  to  tell, 
even  to  Red  Indians.  The  delights  of  horse-racing  and  hunt- 
ing, of  assemblies  in  the  night  instead  of  the  day,  of  costly  and 
wearisome  music,  of  costly  and  burdensome  dress,  of  chagrined 
contention  for  place  or  power,  or  wealth,  or  the  eyes  of  the 
multitude ;  and  all  the  endless  occupation  without  purpose, 
arid  idleness  without  rest,  of  our  vulgar  world,  are  not,  il 
seems  to  me,  enjoyments  we  need  be  ambitious  to  communi- 
cate. And  all  real  and  wholesome  enjoyments  possible  to  mar 
have  been  just  as  possible  to  him,  since  first  he  was  made  of 
the  earth,  as  they  are  now;  and  they  are  possible  to  him 
chiefly  in  peace.  To  watch  the  corn  grow,  and  the  blossoms 


392.  MOUALS    AND   RELWIOX. 

get;  to  draw  hard  breath  over  ploughshare  or  spade- ;  ti  read 
to  think,  to  love,  to  hope,  to  pray, — these  are  the  things  thai 
make  men  happy ;  they  have  always  had  the  power  of  doing 
these,  they  never  will  have  power  to  do  more.  The  world's 
prosperity  or  adversity  depends  upoii  our  knowing  and  teach- 
ing  these  few  things :  but  upon  iron,  or  glass,  or  electricity,  or 
steam,  in  no  wise. 

And  I  am  Utopian  and  enthusiastic  enough  to  believe,  that 
the  time  will  come  when  the  world  will  discover  this.  It  haa 
now  made  its  experiments  in  every  possible  direction  but  the 
right  one ;  and  it  seems  that  it  must,  at  last,  try  the  right  one, 
in  a  mathematical  necessity.  It  has  tried  fighting,  and  preach- 
ing, and  fasting,  buying  and  selling,  pomp  and  parsimony, 
pride  and  humiliation, — every  possible  manner  of  existence  in 
which  it  could  conjecture  there  was  any  happiness  or  dignity  ; 
and  all  the  while,  as  it  bought,  sold,  and  fought,  and  fasted, 
and  wearied  itself  with  policies,  and  ambitions,  and  self- denials, 
God  had  placed  its  real  happiness  in  the  keeping  of  the  little 
mosses  of  the  wayside,  and  of  the  clouds  of  the  firmament. 
Xow  and  then  a  weary  king,  or  a  tormented  slave,  found  out 
where  the  true  kingdoms  of  the  world  were,  and  possessed 
himself,  in  a  furrow  or  two  of  garden  ground,  of  a  truly  inlinite 
dominion.  But  the  world  would  not  believe  their  report,  and 
went  on  trampling  down  the  mosses,  and  forgetting  the  clouds, 
and  seeking  happiness  in  its  own  way,  until,  at.last,  blundering 
and  late,  came  natural  science;  and  in  natural  science  not  only 
the  observation  of  things,  but  the  finding  out  of  new  uses  for 
them.  -Of  course  the  world,  having  a  choice  left  to  it,  went 
v\Tong  as  usual,  and  thought  that  these  mere  material  uses 
were  to  be  the  sources  of  its  happiness.  It  got  the  clouds 
packed  into  iron  cylinders,  and  made  it  carry  its  wise  sell'  at 
their  own  cloud  pace.  It  got  weavable  fibres  out  of  the 
mosses,  and  made  clothes  for  itself,  cheap  and  tine, — here  was 


LANDSCAPE-PAINTING    AND    XATUEAL    SCIENCE.  393 

happiness  at  last.  To  go  as  fast  as  the  clouds,  and  manufacture 
everything  out  of  anything, — here  was  paradise  indeed! 

And  now,  when,  in  a  little  while,  it  is  unparadised  again,  if 
there  were  any  other  mistake  that  the  world  could  make,  it 
would  of  course  make  it.  But  I  see  not  that  there  is  any 
other ;  and,  standing  fairly  at  its  wits'  end,  having  found  that 
going  fast,  when  it  is  used  to  it,  is  no  more  paradisiacal  than 
going  slow ;  and  that  all  the  prints  and  cottons  in  Manchester 
cannot  make  it  comfortable  in  its  mind,  I  do  verily  believe  it 
will  come,  finally,  to  understand  that  God  paints  the  clouds 
and  shapes  the  moss-fibres,  that  men  may  be  happy  in  seeing 
Him  at  His  work,  and  that  in  resting  quietly  beside  Him,  and 
watching  His  working,  and — according  to  the  power  He  hag 
communicated  to  ourselves,  and  the  guidance  He  grants, — in 
carrying  out  His  purposes  of  peace  and  charity  among  all  Hig 
creatures,  are  the  only  real  happinesses  that  ever  were,  or  will 
be,  possible  to  mankind. 

How  fur  art  is  capable  of  he'ping  us  in  such  happiness  we 
hardly  yet  know ;  but  I  hope  to  be  able,  in  the  subsequent 
parts  of  this  work,  to  give  some  data  for  arriving  at  a  conclu- 
sion in  the  matter.  Enough  has  been  advanced  to  relieve  thb, 
reader  from  any  lurking  suspicion  of  unworthiness  in  our 
subject,  and  to  induce  him  to  take  interest  in  the  mind  and 
work  of  the  great  painter  who  has  headed  the  landscape 
school  among  us.  What  further  considerations  may,  within 
any  reasonable  limits,  be  put  before  him,  respecting  the  effect 
of  natural  scenery  on  the  human  heart,  I  will  introduce  in 
their  proper  places  either  as  we  examine,  under  Turner's 
guidance,  the  different  classes  of  scenery,  or  at  the  close  of  the 
whole  work;  and  therefore  I  have  only  one  point  more  to 
notice  here,  namely,  the  exact  relation  between  landscape- 
painting  and  natural  science,  properly  so  called. 

For  it  may  be  thought  that  I  have  rashlj  assumed  that  the 
-x  17* 


394  MORALS    AND    RELIGION. 

Scriptural  authorities  above  quoted  apply  to  that  partly  super 
licial  view  of  nature  which  is  taken  by  the  landscape-painter 
instead  of  to  the  accurate  view  taken  by  the  man  of  science. 
So  far  from  there  being  rashness  in  such  an  assumption,  the 
whole  language,  both  of  the  book  of  Job  and  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount,  gives  precisely  the  view  of  nature  which  is  taken 
by  the  uninvestigating  affection  of  a  humble,  but  powerful 
mind.  There  is  no  dissection  of  muscles  or  counting  of  ele- 
ments, but  the  boldest  and  broadest  glance  at  the  apparent 
facts,  and  the  most  magnificent  metaphor  in  expressing  them. 
"  His  eyes  are  like  the  eyelids  of  the  morning.  In  his  neck 
remain eth  strength,  and  sorrow  is  turned  into  joy  before  him." 
And  in  the  often  repeated,  never  obeyed,  command,  "  Consider 
the  lilies  of  the  field,"  observe  there  is  precisely  the  delicate 
attribution  of  life  which  we  have  seen  to  be  the  characteristic 
of  the  modern  view  of  landscape, — "  They  toil  not."  There 
is  no  science,  or  hint  of  science ;  no  counting  of  petals,  nor 
display  of  provisions  for  sustenance :  nothing  but  the  expres- 
sion of  sympathy,  at  once  the  most  childish,  and  the  most  pro- 
found,—" They  toil  not," 

And  we  see  in  this,  therefore,  that  the  instinct  which  leads 
ns  thus  to  attribute  life  to  the  lowest  forms  of  organic  nature, 
does  not  necessarily  spring  from  faithlessness,  nor  the  deducing 
a  moral  out  of  them  from  an  irregular  and  languid  conscien- 
tiousness. In  this,  as  in  almost  all  things  connected  with 
moral  discipline,  the  same  results  may  follow  from  contrary 
causes ;  and  as  there  are  a  good  and  evil  contentment,  a  good 
and  evil  discontent,  a  good  and  evil  care,  fear,  ambition,  and 
BO  on,  there  are  also  good  and  evil  forms  of  this  sympathy  with 
nature,  and  disposition  to  moralize  over  it.  In  general,  active 
men,  of  strong  sense  and  stern  principle,  do  not  care  to  see 
anything  in  a  leaf,  but  vegetable  tissue,  and  are  so  well  con- 
vinced  of  useful  moral  truth,  that  it  does  not  strike  them  us  a 


SCIENTIFIC    PURSUITS.  39.5 

new  or  notable  thing  when  they  find  it  in  any  \vay  symbolized 
l»y  material  nature  ;  hence  there  is  a  strong  presumption,  when 
first  we  perceive  a  tendency  invany  one  to  regard  trees  as  liv- 
ing, and  enunciate  moral  aphorisms  over  every  pebble  the} 
stumble  against,  that  such  tendency  proceeds  from  a  morbid 
temperament,  like  Shelley's,  or  an  inconstant  one,  like  Jaques's, 
But  when  the  active  life  is  nobly  fulfilled,  and  the  mind  is  then 
raised  beyond  it  into  clear  and  calm  beholding  of  the  world 
around  us,  the  same  tendency  again  manifests  itself  in  the 
most  sacred  way :  the  simplest  forms  of  nature  are  strangely 
animated  by  the  sense  of  the  Divine  presence  ;  the  trees  and 
flowers  seem  all,  in  a  sort,  children  of  God  ;  and  we  ourselves, 
their  fellows,  made  out  of  the  same  dust,  and  greater  than 
they  only  in  having  a  greater  portion  of  the  Divine  power 
exerted  on  our  frame,  and  all  the  common  uses  and  palpably 
visible  forms  of  things,  become  subordinate  in  our  minds  to 
their  inner  glory, — to  the  mysterious  voices  in  which  they  talk 
to  us  about  God,  and  the  changeful  and  typical  aspects  by 
which  they  witness  to  us  of  holy  truth,  and  fill  us  with  obedi- 
ent, joyful,  and  thankful  emotion. 

It  is  in  raising  us  from  the  first  state  of  inactive  reverie  to 
the  second  of  useful  thought,  that  scientific  pursuits  are  to  be 
chiefly  praised.  But  in  restraining  us  at  this  second  stage, 
and  checking  the  impulses  towards  higher  contemplation,  they 
are  to  be  feared  or  blamed.  They  may  in  certain  minds  be 
consistent  with  such  contemplation ;  but  only  by  an  effort :  in 
their  nature  they  are  always  adverse  to  it,  having  a  tendency 
to  chill  and  subdue  the  feelings,  and  to  resolve  all  things  into 
atoms  and  numbers.  For  most  men,  an  ignorant  enjoyment 
is  better  than  an  informed  one ;  it  is  better  to  conceive  the 
sky  as  a  blue  dome  than  a  dark  cavity,  and  the  cloud  as  a 
golden  throne  than  a  sleety  mist.  I  muck  question  whether 
any  one  who  knows  optics,  however  religious  he  may  be,  can 


300  MOEALS    AND    KET.IOIOX. 

feel  iii  equal  degree  the  pleasure  or  reverence  wuich  an  unlet 
tered  peasant  may  feel  at  the  sight  of  a  rainbow.  And  it  is 
mercifully  thus  ordained,  since  the  law  of  life,  for  a  finite  being, 
with  respect  to  the  works  of  an  infinite  one,  must  be  always 
an  infinite  ignorance.  We  cannot  fathom  the  mystery  of  a 
single  flower,  nor  is  it  intended  that  we  should ;  but  that  the 
pursuit  of  science  should  constantly  be  stayed  by  the  love  of 
beauty,  and  accuracy  of  knowledge  by  tenderness  of  emotion. 
Nor  is  it  even  just  to  speak  of  the  love  of  beauty  as  in  all 
respects  unscientific;  for  there  is  a  science  of  the  aspects  of 
things  as  well  as  of  their  nature ;  and  it  is  as  much  a  fact  to 
be  noted  in  their  constitution,  that  they  produce  such  and 
such  an  effect  upon  the  eye  or  heart  (as,  for  instance,  that  mi- 
nor scales  of  sound  cause  melancholy),  as  that  they  are  made 
up  of  certain  atoms  or  vibrations  of  matter. 

We  are  too  much  in  the  habit  of  looking  at  falsehood  in  ita 
darkest*  associations,  and  through  the  color  of  its  worst  pur- 
poses. That  indignation  which  we  profess  to  feel  at  deceit 
absolata,  is  indeed  only  at  deceit  malicious.  We  resent 
calumny,  hypocrisy,  and  treachery,  because  they  harm  us,  not 
because  they  are  untrue.  Take  the  detraction  and  the  mischief 
from  the  untruth,  and  we  are  little  offended  by  it ;  turn  it  into 
praise,  and  we  may  be  pleased  with  it.  And  yet  it  is  not 
calumny  nor  treachery  that  does  the  most  harm  in  the  world  ; 
they  are  continually  crushed,  and  are  felt  only  in  being  con- 
quered. But  it  is  the  glistening  and  softly  spoken  lie  ;  the 
amiable  fallacy  ;  the  patriotic  lie  of  the  historian,  the  provident 
lie  of  the  politician,  the  zealous  lie  of  the  partizan,  the  merci 
till  lie  of  the  friend,  and  the  careless  lie  of  each  man  to  him 
self,  that  cast  that  black  mystery  over  humanity,  through 
which  any  man  who  pierces,  \ve  thank  as  \ve  would  thank  ;!ii} 
one  who  dug  a  well  in  a  desert ;  happy  in  that  the  thirst  fb> 


THE    PUNISHMENT    OF    SIN.  397 

truth  still  remains  with  us,  even  when  we  have  wilfully  left 
the  fountains  of  it. 

It  would  be  well  if  moralists  less  frequently  confused  the 
greatness  of  a  sin  with  its  unpardonahleness.  The  two  cha 
meters  are  altogether  distinct.  The  greatness  of  a  fault 
depends  partly  on  the  nature  of  the  person  against  whom  it 
is  committed,  partly  upon  the  extent  of  its  consequences.  It? 
pardonableness  depends,  humanly  speaking,  on  the  degree  of 
temptation  to  it.  One  class  of  circumstances  determines  the 
weight  of  the  attaching  punishment,  the  other,  the  claim  to 
the  remission  of  punishment ;  and  since  it  is  not  easy  for  men 
to  estimate  the  relative  weight,  nor  possible  for  them  to  know 
the  relative  consequences  of  crime,  it  is  usually  wise  in  them 
to  quit  the  care  of  such  wise  adjustments,  a'nd  to  look  on  the 
other  and  clearer  condition  of  culpability,  esteeming  those 
faults  greatest  which  are  committed  under  least  temptation. 
I  do  not  mean  to  diminish  the  blame  of  the  injurious  and 
malicious  sin,  of  the  selfish  and  deliberate  falsity;  yet  it  seems 
to  me  that  the  shortest  way  to  check  the  darker  forms  of 
deceit  is  to  set  more  scrupulous  watch  against  those  which 
have  mingled,  unregarded  and  unchastised,  with  the  current 
of  our  life.  Do  not  let  us  lie  at  all.  Do  not  think  of  one 
falsity  as  harmless,  and  another  as  slight,  and  another  as  unin- 
tended. Cast  them  all  aside ;  they  may  be  light  and  acciden- 
tal, but  they  are  an  ugly  soot  from  the  smoke  of  the  pit,  for 
all  that ;  and  it  is  better  that  our  hearts  should  be  kept  clear 
of  them,  without  over-care  as  to  which  is  the  largest  or 
blackest.  Speaking  truth  is  like  writing  fair,  and  comes  only 
by  practice ;  it  is  less  a  matter  of  will  than  of  habit ;  and  I 
doubt  if  any  occasion  can  be  trivial  which  permits  the  prac- 
tice and  formation  of  such  a  habit.  To  speak  and  act  truth 
with  constancy  and  precision  is  nearly  as  difficult,  and  perhaps 
as  meritorious,  aa  to  speak  it  under  intimidation  or  penalty ; 


398  MORALS    AND    RELIOIOX. 

and  it  is  a  strange  thought  how  many  men  there  are,  as  I  trust, 
who  would  hold  it  at  the  cost  of  fortune  or  life,  for  one  who 
could  hold  it  at  the  cost  of  a  little  daily  trouble. 

And  seeing  that  of  all  sin  there  is,  perhaps,  no  one  more 
flatly  opposite  to  the  Almighty,  no  one  more  "  wanting  the 
good  of  virtue  and  of  being,"  than  this  of  lying,  it  is  surely  a 
strange  insolence  to  fall  into  the  foulness  of  it  on  light  or  no 
temptation,  and  surely  becoming  an  honorable  man  to  resolve 
that,  whatever  fallacies  the  necessary  course  of  his  life  may 
compel  him  to  bear  or  to  believe,  none  shall  disturb  the  serenity 
of  his  voluntary  actions,  nor  diminish  the  reality  of  his  chosen 
delights. 

On  the  whole,  these  are  much  sadder  ages  than  the  early 
ones ;  not  sadder  in  a  noble  and  deep  way,  but  in  a  dim,  wearied 
way, — the  way  of  ennui,  and  jaded  intellect,  and  uncomfortable- 
ness  of  soul  and  body.  The  Middle  Ages  had  their  wars  and 
agonies,  but  also  intense  delights.  Their  gold  was  dashed  with 
blood  ;  but  ours  is  sprinkled  with  dust.  Their  life  was  inter- 
woven with  white  and  purple ;  ours  is  one  seamless  stuff  of 
brown.  Not  that  we  are  without  apparent  festivity,  but  festivity 
more  or  less  forced,  mistaken,  embittered,  incomplete — not  of 
the  heart.  How  wonderfully,  since  Shakspere's  time,  have  we 
lost  the  power  of  laughing  at  bad  jests !  The  very  finish  of 
our  wit  belies  our  gaiety. 

The  profoundest  reason  of  this  darkness  of  heart  is,  I  believe, 
our  want  of  faith.  There  never  yet  was  a  generation  of  men 
(savage  or  civilized)  who,  taken  as  a  body,  so  wofully  fulfilled 
the  words,  "having  no  hope,  and  without  God  in  the  world, '' 
as  the  present  civilized  European  race.  A  Red  Indian  01 
Otaheitan  savage  has  more  sense  of  a  Divine  existence  round 
him,  or  government  over  him,  than  the  plurality  of  refined 
Londoners  and  Varl.-Ni.ms;  and  those  among  us  who  may  hi 


WAXT    OF    FAITH.  399 

some  sense  be  said  to  believe,  are  divided  almost  without 
exception  into  two  broad  classes,  Romanist  and  Puritan  ;  who, 
but  for  the  interference  of  the  unbelieving  portions  of  society, 
would,  either  of  them,  reduce  the  other  sect  as  speedily  a 
possible  to  ashes  ;  the  Romanist  ha\ing  always  done  so  when 
ever  he  could,  from  the  beginning  of  their  separation,  and  the 
Puritan  at  this  time  holding  himself  hi  complacent  expectation 
of  the  destruction  of  Rome  by  volcanic  fire.  Such  division  aa 
this  between  persons  nominally  of  one  religion,  that  is  to  say, 
believing  in  the  same  God,  and  the  same  Revelation,  cannot 
but  become  a  stumbling-block  of  the  gravest  kind  to  all  thought- 
ful and  far-sighted  men, — a  stumbling-block  which  they  can 
only  surmount  under  the  most  favorable  circumstances  of  early 
education.  Hence,  nearly  all  our  powerful  men  in  this  age  of 
the  world  are  unbelievers  ;  the  best  of  them  in  doubt  and 
misery ;  the  worst  in  reckless  defiance  ;  the  plurality  in  plodding 
hesitation,  doing,  as  well  as  they  can,  what  practical  work  lies 
ready  to  their  hands.  Most  of  our  scientific  men  are  in  this  last 
class ;  our  popular  authors  either  set  themselves  definitely 
against  all  religious  form,  pleading  for  simply  truth  and  bene- 
volence (Thackeray,  Dickens),  or  give  themselves  up  to  bitter 
and  fruitless  statement  of  facts  (De  Balzac),  or  surface-painting 
(Scott),  or  careless  blasphemy,  sadorsmiling  (Byron,  Beranger). 
Our  earnest  poets,  and  deepest  thinkers,  are  doubtful  and  indig- 
nant (Tennyson,  Carlyle) ;  one  or  two,  anchored,  indeed,  but 
anxious,  or  weeping  (Wordsworth,  Mrs.  Browning)  ;  and 
of  these  two,  the  first  is  not  so  sure  of  his  anchor,  but 
Ihat  now  and  then  it  drags  with  him,  even  to  make  him  013 
out, — 

"  Great  God.  I  had  rather  bo 
A  Pagan  suckled  in  some  creed  ov.tworn : 

So  might  I,  standing  on  this  pleasant  lea, 
Have  yiiiiipsvs  that  would  make  me  less  forlorn.* 


400  MORALS    AND    RELIGION. 

The  absence  of  care  for  personal  beauty,  which  is  another 
great  characteristic  of  the  age,  adds  to  this  feeling  in  a  twofold 
way:  first,  by  turning  all  reverent  thoughts  away  from  hum.in 
nature ;  and  making  us  think  of  men  as  ridiculous  or  us*ly 
creatures,  getting  through  the  world  as  well  as  they  can",  and 
spoiling  it  in  doing  so;  not  ruling  it  in  a  kingly  way  and 
crowning  all  its  loveliness.  In  the  Middle  Ages  hardly  anything 
but  vice  could  be  caricatured,  because  virtue  was  always  visibly 
and  personally  noble  ;  now  virtue  itself  is  apt  to  inhabit  such 
poor  human  bodies,  that  no  aspect  of  it  is  invulnerable  to  jest ; 
and  for  all  fairness  we  have  to  seek  to  the  flowers,  for  all 
sublimity,  to  the  hills. 

The  same  want  of  care  operates,  in  another  way,  by  lowering 
the  standard  of  health,  increasing  the  susceptibility  to  nervous 
or  sentimental  impression?,  and  thus  adding  to  the  other  powers 
of  nature  over  us  whatever  charm  may  be  felt  in  her  fostering 
the  melancholy  fancies  of  brooding  idleness. 

That  is  to  everything  created,  pre-eminently  useful,  which 
enables  it  rightly  and  fully  to  perform  the  functions  appointed 
to  it  by  its  Creator.  Therefore,  that  we  may  determine  what 
is  chiefly  useful  to  man,  it  is  necessary  first  to  determine  the 
use  of  man  himself. 

Man's  use  and  function  is  to  be  the  witness  of  the  glory  of 
God,  and  to  advance  that  glory  by  his  reasonable  obedience 
and  resultant  happiness. 

Whatever  enables  us  to  mini  this  function,  is  in  the  pure  and 
first  sense  of  the  word  useful  to  us  ;  pre-eminently,  therefore, 
whatever  sets  the  glory  of  God  more  brightly  before  us.  But 
things  that  only  help  us  to  exist,  are  in  a  secondary  aud  mean 
sense,  useful,  or  rather,  if  they  be  looked  tor  alone,  they  are 
useless  and  worse ;  for  it  would  be  better  that  we  should  not 
exist,  than  that  we  should  guiltily  disappoint  the  purposes  of 
existence. 


MAN'S    USE    AND    FUNCTION.  401 

Ami  yet  people  speak  in  this  working  age,  \vhen  they  speak 
horn  their  hearts,  ;is  it' houses,  and  lands,  and  food,  and  raiment 
were  alone  useful,  and  as  if  sight,  thought,  and  admiration,  were 
ail  profitless,  so  that  men  insolently  call  themselves  Utilitarians, 
uho  would  turn,  if  they  had  their  way,  themselves  and. their 
nice  into  vegetables ;  men  who  think,  as  far  as  sueh  can  be  said 
to  think,  that  the  meat  is  more  than  the  life,  and  the  raiment 
than  the  body,  who  look  to  the  earth  as  a  stable,  and  to  its  fruit 
as  fodder ;  vinedressers  and  husbandmen,  who  love  the  corn  they 
grind,  and  the  grapes  they  crush,  better  than  the  gardens  of 
the  angels  upon  the  slopes  of  Eden ;  hewers  of  wood  and  drawers 
of  water,  who  think  that  the  wood  they  hew  and  the  water  they 
draw,  are  better  than  the  pine  forests  that  cover  the  mountains 
like  the  shadow  of  God,  and  than  the  great  rivers  that  move 
like  eternity. 

It  seems  to  me  that  much  of  what  is  great,  and  to  all  men 
beneficial,  has  been  wrought  by  those  who  neither  intended 
nor  knew  the  good  they  did,  and  that  many. mighty  harmonica 
have  been  discoursed  by  instruments  that  had  been  dumb  or 
discordant,  but  that  God  knew  their  stops.  The  Spirit  of 
Prophecy  consisted  with  the  avarice  of  Balaam,  and  the  dis- 
obedience of  Saul.  Could  we  spare  from  its  page  that  parable, 
which  he  said,  who  saw  the  vision  of  the  Almighty,  falling  into 
a  trance,  but  having  his  eyes  open,  though  we  know  that  the 
sword  of  his  punishment  was  then  sharp  in  its  sheath  beneath 
him  in  the  plains  of  Moab  ?  or  shall  Ave  not  lament  with  David 
over  the  shield  cast  away  on  the  Gilboa  mountains,  of  him 
to  whom  God  gave  another  heart  that  day,  when  he  turned  Ida 
back  to  gc  from  Samuel  ?  It  is  not  our  part  to  look  hardly, 
nor  to  look  always,  to  the  character  or  the  deeds  of  men,  but 
to  accept  from  all  of  thorn,  and  to  hold  fast  that  which  we  can 
prove  good,  and  feel  to  be  ordained  for  us. 


402  MORAI3    AND    IU2L1GION. 

It  is  rot  possible  for  a  Christian  man  to  walk  across  so  much 
as  a  rood  of  the  natural  earth,  with  mind  unagitated  and  rightly 
poised,  without  receiving  strength  and  hope  from  some  stone, 
flower,  leaf,  or  sound,  nor  without  a  sense  of  a  dew  falling  upon 
him  out  of  the  sky;  though,  I  say,  this  falsity  is  not  wholly  and 
in  terms  admitted,  yet  it  seems  to  be  partly  and  practically  so 
in  much  of  the  doing  and  teaching  even  of  holy  men,  who  iu 
the  recommending  of  the  love  of  God  to  us,  refer  but  seldom 
to  those  things  in  which  it  is  most  abundantly  and  immediately 
shown ;  though  they  insist  much  on  his  giving  of  bread,  and 
raiment,  and  health,  (which  lie  gives  to  all  inferior  creatures,) 
they  require  us  not  to  thank  him  for  that  glory  of  his  works 
\vhich  he  has  permitted  us  alone  to  perceive:  they  tell  us  often 
to  meditate  in  the  closet,  but  they  send  us  not,  like  Isaac,  into 
the  fit-Ids  at  even;  they  dwell  on  the  duty  of  self-denial,  but  they 
exhibit  not  the  duty  of  delight.  Now  there  are  reasons  for  this, 
manifold  iu  .the  toil  and  warfare  of  an  earnest  mind,  which,  in 
its  efforts  at  the  raising  of  men  from  utter  loss  and  misery,  has 
often  but  little  time  or  disposition  to  take  heed  of  anything 
more  than  the  bare  life,  and  of  those  so  occupied  it  is  not  for 
us  to  judge ;  but  I  think,  that,  of  the  weaknesses,  distresses, 
vanities,  schisms,  and  sins,  which  often  even  in  the  holiest  men, 
diminish  their  usefulness,  and  mar  their  happiness,  there  would 
be  fewer,  if  in  their  struggle  with  nature  fallen,  they  sought  for 
more  aid  from  nature  undestroyed.  It  seems  to  me  that  the 
real  sources  of  bluntness  in  the  feelings  towards  the  splendor 
of  the  grass  and  glory  of  the  flower,  are  less  to  be  found 
in  ardor  of  occupation,  in  seriousness  of  compassion,  or  heaven. 
liness  of  desire,  than  in  the  turning  of  the  eye  at  inten 
rest  too  selfishly  within ;  the  want  of  power  to  shake  oft"  the 
anxieties  of  actual  and  near  interest,  and  to  leave  results  in 
hands;  the  scorn  of  all  that  does  not  seem  immediate!] 


MAJS'S    L'SE    AXD    FUNCTION.  403 

apt  for  our  purposes,  or  open  to  our  understanding,  and  perhaps 
something  of  pride,  which  desires  ratner  to  investigate  than 
to  feel.  I  believe  that  the  root  of  almost  every  schism  and 
heresy  from  which  the  Christian  church  has  ever  suffered,  ha& 
been  the  effort  of  men  to  earn,  rather  than  to  receive,  their 
salvation. 

Deep  though  the  causes  of  thankfulness  must  be  to  every 
people  at  peace  with  others  and  at  unity  with  itself,  there  are 
causes  or  fear  also,  a  fear  greater  than  of  sword  and  sedition; 
that  dependence  on  God  may  be  forgotten  because  the  bread 
is  given  and  the  water  is  sure ;  that  gratitude  to  Him  may  cease 
because  his  constancy  of  protection  has  taken  the  semblance  of 
a  natural  law ;  that  heavenly  hope  may  grow  faint  amid  the  full 
fruition  of  the  world ;  that  selfishness  may  take  place  of  unde- 
manded  devotion,  compassion  be  lost  in  vain-glory,  and  love 
in  dissimulation ;  that  enervation  may  succeed  to  strength, 
apathy  to  patience,  and  noise  of  jesting  words  and  foulness 
of  dark  thoughts  to  the  earnest  purity  of  the  girded  loins  and 
the  burning  lamp.  About  the  river  of  human  life  there  is  a 
wintry  wind,  though  a  heavenly  sunshine ;  the  iris  colors  its 
agitation  ;  the  frost  fixes  upon  its  repose !  Let  us  beware  that 
our  rest  become  not  the  rest  of  stones,  which  so  long  as  they 
are  torrent-tossed  and  thunder-stricken,  maintain  their  majesty, 
but  when  the  stream  is  silent,  and  the  storm  passed,  suffer  the 
grass  to  cover  them  and  the  lichen  to  feed  on  them,  and  are 
ploughed  down  into  dust. 

There  is  no  action  so  slight,  nor  so  mean,  but  it  may  be  dene 
to  a  great  purpose,  and  ennobled  therefor;  nor  is  any  pur- 
pose so  great  but  that  slight  actions  may  help  it,  and  may  be 
so  done  as  to  help  it  much,  most  especially  that  chief  of  aJJ 
par [oses,  the  pleasing  of  God.  Hence  George  Herbert — 


404  MORALS    AND    RELIGION. 

"  A  servant  with  this  clause 
Makes  drudgery  divine; 
Who  sweeps  a  room,  as  for  thy  laws, 

Makes  that  and  the  action  fine." 

i 

We  treat  God  with  irreverence  by  banishing  Him  from  oni 
thoughts,  not  by  referring  to  his  will  on  slight  occasions,  ilia 
is  not  the  finite  authority  or  intelligence  which  cannot  be 
troubled  with  small  things.  There  is  nothing  so  small  but 
that  we  may  honor  God  by  asking  His  guidance  of  it,  or  insult 
Him  by  taking  it  into  our  own  hands ;  and  what  is  true  of  the 
Deity  is  equally  true  of  His  Revelation.  We  use  it  most 
reverently  when  most  habitually ;  our  insolence  is  in  ever  act- 
ing without  reference  to  it ;  our  true  honoring  of  it  is  in  ita 
universal  application. 

There  is  not  any  part  of  our  feeling  or  nature,  nor  can  there 
be  through  eternity,  which  shall  not  be  in  some  way  influenced 
and  affected  by  the  fall,  and  that  not  iu  any  way  of  degrada- 
tion, for  the  renewing  in  the  divinity  of  Christ  is  a  nobler  con- 
dition than  ever  that  of  Paradise,  and  yet  throughout  eternity 
it  must  imply  and  refer  to  the  disobedience,  and  the  corrupt 
state  of  sin  and  death,  and  the  suffering  of  Christ  himself, 
which  can  we  conceive  of  any  redeemed  soul  as  for  an  instant 
forgetting,  or  as  remembering  without  sorrow  ?  Neither  are 
the  alternations  of  joy  and  such  sorrow  as  by  us  is  inconceiva- 
ble being  only  as  it  were  a  softness  and  silence  in  the  pulse  of 
an  infinite  felicity,  inconsistent  with  the  state  even  of  the  iu> 
fallen,  for  the  angels  who  rejoice  over  repentance  cannot  but 
feel  an  uncomprehended  pain  as  they  try  and  try  again  in  vain 
whether  they  may  not  warm  hard  hearts  with  the  brooding  of 
their  kind  wings. 

God  appoints  to  every  one  of  his  creatures  a  separate  ml"- 


HONOR  FOK  THE  DEAD,  GRATITUDE  FOR  THE  LIVING.       405 

sioti,  and  if  they  discharge  it  honorably,  if  they  quit  themselves 
like  men,  and  faithfully  follow  that  light  which  is  in  them, 
withdrawing  from  it  all  cold  and  quenchless  influence,  there 
will  assuredly  come  of  it  such  burning  as,  according  to  its 
jippointed  mode  and  measure,  shall  shine  before  men,  and  be 
of  service  constant  and  holy.  Degrees  infinite  of  lustre  there 
must  always  be,  but  the  weakest  among  us  has  a  gift,  however 
seemingly  trivial,  which  is  peculiar  to  him,  and  which,  worthily 
used,  will  be  a  gift  also  to  his  race  for  ever — "  Fool  not,"  saya 
George  Herbert, 

"For  all  may  have, 
If  they  dare  choose,  a  glorious  life  or  grave." 

Let  us  not  forget,  that  if  honor  be  for  the  dead,  gratitude 
can  only  be  for  the  living.  He  who  has  once  stood  beside  the 
grave,  to  look  back  upon  the  companionship  which  has  been 
for  ever  closed,  i'eeling  how  impotent  there  are  the  wild  love, 
or  the  keen  sorrow,  to  give  one  instant's  pleasure  to  the  pulse- 
less heart,  or  atone  in  the  lowest  measure  to  the  departed 
spirit  for  the  hour  ol  •mkinduess,  will  scarcely,  for  the  future, 
incur  that  debt  to  thi  heart,  which  can  only  be  discharged  to 
the  dust.  But  the  lesson  which  men  receive  as  individuals, 
they  do  not  learn  as  nations.  Again  and  again  they  have  seen 
their  noblest  descend  into  the  grave,  and  have  thought  it 
enough  to  garland  the  tombstone  when  they  had  not  crowned 
the  brow,  and  to  pay  the  honor  to  the  ashes,  which  they  had 
denied  to  the  spirit.  Let  it  not  displease  them  that  they  are 
bidden,  amid  the  tumult  and  the  dazzle  of  their  busy  life,  to 
listen  to  the  few  voices,  and  watch  for  the  few  lamps,  which 
God  has  toned  and  lighted  to  charm  and  to  guide  them,  that 
they  may  not  learn  their  sweetness  by  their  silence,  nor  their 
light  by  tluir  decay. 


406  MORALS    AND    RELIGION. 

Aristotle  has  subtly  noted  that  "we  call  not  men  intemperate 
BO  much  with  respect  to  the  scents  of  roses  or  herb-perfumes 
as  of  ointments  and  of  condiments."  For  the  fact  is,  that  of 
scents  artificially  prepared  the  extreme  desire  is  intemperance, 
but  of  natural  and  God-given  scents,  which  take  their  part  in 
the  harmony  and  pleasantness  of  creation,  there  can  hardly 
be  intemperance;  not  that  there  is  any  absolute  difference 
between  the  two  kinds,  but  that  these  are  likely  to  be  received 
with  gratitude  and  joyfulness  rather  than  those,  so  that  we 
despise  the  seeking  of  essences  and  unguents,  but  not  the 
sowing  of  violets  along  our  garden  banks.  But  all  things  may 
be  elevated  by  affection,  as  the  spikenard  of  Mary,  and  in  the 
Song  of  Solomon,  the  myrrh  upon  the  handles  of  the  lock,  and 
that  of  Isaac  concerning  his  son.  And  the  general  law  for  all 
these  pleasures  is,  that  when  sought  in  the  abstract  and 
ardently,  they  are  fovd  things,  but  when  received  with  thank- 
fulness and  with  reference  to  God's  glory,  they  become  theo- 
retic (the  exulting,  reverent,  and  grateful  perception  of 
pleasantness,  I  call  t/ieoria) ;  and  so  I  can  find  something  divine 
in  the  sweetness  of  wild  fruits,  as  well  as  in  the  pleasantness 
of  the  pure  air,  and  the  tenderness  of  its  natural  perfumea 
that  come  and  go  as  they  li  t. 

The  pleasures  of  sight  and  hearing  are  given  as  gifts.  They 
answer  not  any  purposes  of  mere  existence,  for  the  distinction 
of  all  that  is  useful  or  dangerous  to  us  might  be  made,  and 
often  is  made,  by  the  eye,  without  its  receiving  the  slightest 
pleasure  of  sight.  We  might  have  learned  to  distinguish  fruit  a 
and  grain  from  flowers,  without  having  any  superior  pleasure 
in  the  aspect  of  the  latter.  And  the  ear  might  have  learned 
to  distinguish  the  sounds  that  communicate  ideas,  or  to  recog 
iii/,'  intimations  of  elemental  clanger,  without  perceiving  cither 
music  in  the  voice,  or  majesty  in  the  thunder.  And  as  these 
pleasures  have  no  function  to  perform,  so  there  is  no  limit  to 


TRADESMEN".  407 

their  continuance  in  the  accomplishment  of  their  ei  d,  for  they 
are  an  end  in  themselves,  and  so  may  be  perpetual  with  all  of 
us — being  in  no  way  destructive,  but  rather  increasing  in 
rvquisiteness  by  repetition. 

In  whatever  is  an  object  of  life,  in  whatever  may  be  infinitely 
and  for  itself  desired,  we  may  be  sure  there  is  something  of 
divine,  for  God  will  not  make  anything  an  object  of  life  to  his. 
creatures  which  does  not  point  to,  or  partake  of,  Himself. 

I  believe  one  of  the  worst  symptoms  of  modern  society  to 
be,  its  notion  of  great  inferiority,  and  ungcntlemanliness,  as 
necessarily  belonging  to  the  character  of  a  tradesman.  I  be 
lieve  tradesmen  may  be,  ought  to  be — often  are,  more  gentle- 
men than  idle  and  useless  people :  and  I  believe  that  art  may 
do  noble  work  by  recording  in  the  hall  of  each  trade,  the  ser 
vices  which  men  belonging  to  that  trade  have  done  for  their 
country,  both  preserving  the  portraits,  and  recording  the  im- 
portant incidents  in  the  lives,  of  those  who  have  made  great 
advances  in  commerce  and  civilization.  We  are  stewards  01 
ministers  of  whatever  talents  are  entrusted  to  us.  Is  it  not  a 
strange  thing,  that  while  we  more  or  less  accept  the  meaning 
of  that  saying,  so  long  as  it  is  considered  metaphorical,  wn 
never  accept  its  meaning  in  its  own  terms?  You  know  the 
lesson  is  given  t;s  under  the  form  of  a  story  about  money. 
Money  was  given  to  the  servants  to  make  use  of:  the  unpro- 
fitable servant  dug  in  the  earth,  and  hid  his  Lord's  money. 
Well,  we,  in  our  poetical  and  spiritual  application  of  this,  say, 
that  of  course  money  doesn't  mean  money,  it  means  wit,  it 
means  intellect,  it  means  influence  in  high  quarters,  it  mcang 
everything  in-  the  world  except  itself.  And  do  not  you  see 
what  a  pretty  and  pleasant  come-off  there  is  for  most  of  us,  in 
this  spiritual  application  ?  Of  course,  if  we  hud  wit.  we  would 


<GS  MOUAJ.S    AND    RELIGION. 

use  it  for  the  good  of  our  fellow-creatures.  But  we  naven't 
wit.  Of  course,  if  we  had  influence  with  the  bishops,  wo 
would  use  it  for  the  good  of  the  Church ;  but  we  haven't  any 
.influence  with  the  bishops.  Of  course,  if  we  had  political 
power,  we  would  use  it  for  the  good  of  the  nation;  but  we 
Lave  no  political  power;  we  have  no  talents  entrusted  to  ?/« 
of  any  sort  or  kind.  It  is  true  we  have  a  little  money,  but  the 
parable  can't  possibly  mean  anything  so  vulgar  as  money; 
our  money's  our  own. 

I  believe,  if  you  think  seriously  of  this  matter,  you  will  feel 
that  the  first  and  most  literal  application  is  just  as  necessary  a 
one  as  any  other — that  the  story  does  very  specially  mean 
what  it  says — plain  money ;  and  that  the  reason  we  don't  at 
once  believe  it  does  so,  is  a  sort  of  tacit  idea  that  while  thought, 
•vit,  and  intellect,  and  all  power  of  birth  and  position,  are 
mdeed  given  to  us,  and,  therefore,  to  be  laid  out  for  the 
Giver, — our  wealth  has  not  been  given  to  us ;  but  we  have 
worked  for  it,  and  have  a  right  to  spend  it  as  we  choose.  I 
think  you  will  find  that  is  the  real  substance  of  our  nmlrrstand- 
ing  in  this  matter.  Beauty,  we  say,  is  given  by  God — it  is  a 
talent ;  strength  is  given  by  God — it  is  a  talent ;  position  is 
given  by  God — it  is  a  talent ;  but  money  is  proper  wages  for 
our  day's  work — it  is  not  a  talent,  it  is  a  lue.  We  may  justly 
spend  it  on  ourselves,  if  we  have  worked  for  it. 

And  there  would  be  some  shadow  of  excuse  for  this,  were  it. 
not  that  the  very  power  of  making  the  money  is  itself  only 
one  of  the  applications  of  that  intellect  or  strength  which  we 
confess  to  bo  talents.  Why  is  one  man  richer  than  another  ? 
Because  he  is  more  industrious,  more  persevering,  and  more 
sagacious.  Well,  who  made  him  more  persevering  and  mere 
sagacious  than  others?  That  power  of  endurance,  that 
quickness  of  apprehension,  that  calmness  of  judgment,  which 
enable  him  to  seize  the  opportunities  that  others  lose,  and  per 


THK    SPI11IT    OF    TRADE.  409 

sist  in  the  lines  of  conduct  in  which  others  fail — are  these  not 
talent  ? — are  they  not  in  the  present  state  of  the  world, 
among  the  most  distinguished  and  influential  of  mental  gifts? 
And  is  it  not  wonderful,  that  while  we  should  be  utterly 
ashamed  to  use  a  superiority  of  body,  in  order  to  thrust  our 
weaker  companions  aside  from  some  place  of  advantage,  we 
unhesitatingly  use  our  superiorities  of  mind  to  thrust  them 
back  from  whatever  good  that  strength  of  mind  can  attain. 
You  would  be  indignant  if  you  saw  a  strong  man  walk  into  a 
theatre  or  a  lecture-room,  and  calmly  choosing  the  best  place, 
take  his  feeble  neighbor  by  the  shoulder,  and  turn  him  out 
of  it  into  the  back  seats,  or  the  street.  You  would  be  equally 
indignant  if  you  saw  a  stout  fellow  thrust  himself  up  to  a 
(able  where  some  hungry  children  were  being  fed,  and  reach 
his  arm  over  their  heads  and  take  their  bread  from  them. 
But  you  are  not  the  least  indignant  if  when  a  man  has  stout- 
ness of  thought  and  swiftness  of  capacity,  and,  instead  of  being 
long-armed  only,  has  the  much  greater  gift  of  being  long- 
headed— you  think  it  perfectly  just  that  he  should  use  his 
intellect  to  take  the  bread  out  of  the  mouths  of  all  the  other 
men  in  the  town  who  are  of  the  same  trade  with  him  ;  or  use 
his  breadth  and  sweep  of  sight  to  gather  some  branch  of  the 
commerce  of  the  country  into  one  great  cobweb,  of  which  he 
is  himself  to  be  the  central  spider,  making  every  tlvread  vibrate 
with  the  points  of  his  claws,  and  commanding  every  avenue 
with  the  facets  of  his  eyes.  You  see  no  injustice  in  this. 

But  there  is  injustice;  and,  let  us  trust,  one  of  which 
honorable  men  will  at  no  very  distant  period  disdain  to  be 
guilty.  In  some  degree,  however,  it  is  indeed  not  unjust ;  hi 
some  degree  it  is  necessary  and  intended.  It  is  assuredly  just 
that  idleness  should  be  surpassed  by  energy;  that  the  widest 
influence  should  be  possessed  by  those  who  are  best  able  to 
wield  it ;  and  that  a  wise  man,  .at  the  end  of  his  career,  should 

18 


410  MOiJALS    A3TD   RELIGION. 

be  better  off  than  a  fool.  But  for  that  reason,  is  the  fcol  to 
be  wretched,  utterly  crushed  down,  and  left  in  all  the  suffer 
ing  which  his  conduct  and  capacity  naturally  inflict  ?  —Not  so. 
What  do  you  suppose  fools  were  made  for  ?  That  you  might 
tread  upon  them,  and  starve  them,  and  get  the  better  of  them 
in  every  possible  way?  By  no  means.  They  were  made  that 
wise  people  might  take  care  of  them.  That  is  the  true  and 
plain  fact  concerning  the  relations  of  every  strong  and  wise 
man  to  the  world  about  him.  He  has  his  strength  given  him, 
not  that  he  may  crush  the  weak,  but  that  he  may  support  and 
guide  them.  In  his  own  household  he  is  to  be  the  guide  ai  d 
the  support  of  his  children ;  out  of  his  household  he  is  still  to 
be  the  father,  that  is,  the  guide  and  support  of  the  weak  and 
the  poor;  not  merely  of  the  meritoriously  weak  and  the  inno- 
cently poor,  but  of  the  guiltily  and  punishably  poor;  of  the 
men  who  ought  to  have  known  better — of  the  poor  who  ought 
to  be  ashamed  of  themselves.  It  is  nothing  to  give  pension 
and  cottage  to  the  widow  who  has  lost  her  son  ;  it  is  nothing 
to  give  food  and  medicine  to  the  workman  who  has  broken 
his  arm,  or  the  decrepit  woman  wasting  in  sickness.  But  it 
is  something  to  use  your  time  and  strength  to  war  with  the 
waywardness  and  thoughtlessness  of  mankind ;  to  keep  the 
erring  workman  in  your  service  till  you  have  made  Lini  an 
unerring  one;  and  to  direct  your  fellow-merchant  to  the 
opportunity  which  his  dulness  would  have  lost.  This  is 
much ;  but  it  is  yet  more,  when  you  have  fully  ach loved  the 
uperiority  which  is  due  to  you,  and  acquired  the  woaltli  which 
is  the  fitting  reward  of  your  sagacity,  if  you  solejnnTy  accept 
the  responsibility  of  it,  as  it  is  the  helm  and  gvide  of  labor 
far  and  near.  For  you  who  have  it  in  your  hands,  are  in 
reality  the  pilots  of  the  power  and  effort  of  the  State.  It  is 
entrusted  to  you  as  an  authority  to  be  used  for  good  or  evil, 
just  as  completely  as  kingly  authority  was  ever  given  to  a 


RIGHT   USE    OF    WEALTH.  411 

prince,  or  military  command  to  a  captain.  And,  according  to 
the  quantity  of  it  that  you  have  in  your  hands,  you  are  the 
arbiters  of  the  will  and  work  of  England  ;  and  the  whole  i.-sue 
whether  the  work  of  the  State  shall  suffice  for  the  State  or 
not,  depends  upon  you.  You  may  stretch  out  your  sceptre 
over  the  heads  of  the  English  laborers,  and  say  to  them,  as 
they  stoop  to  its  waving,  "  Subdue  this  obstacle  that  has 
baffled  our  fathers,  put  away  this  plague  that  consumes  0111 
children ;  water  these  dry  places,  plough  these  desert  ones, 
carry  this  food  to  those  who  are  in  hunger  ;  carry  this  light  to 
those  who  are  in  darkness ;  carry  this  life  to  those  who  are 
in  death ;"  or  on  the  other  side  you  may  say  to  her  labor- 
ers :  "  Here  am  I ;  this  power  is  in  my  hand ;  come,  build  a 
mound  here  for  me  to  be  throned  upon,  high  and  wide  ; 
come,  make  crowns  for  my  head,  that  men  may  see  them 
shine  from  far  away ;  come,  weave  tapestries  for  my  feet, 
that  I  may  tread  softly  on  the  silk  and  purple ;  come,  dance 
before  me,  that  I  may  be  gay ;  and  sing  sweetly  to  me,  that  I 
may  slumber ;  so  shall  I  live  in  joy  and  die  in  honor."  And 
better  than  such  an  honorable  death,  it  were  that  the  day 
had  perished  wherein  we  were  born,  and  the  night  m 
which  it  was  said  there  is  a  child  conceived. 

I  trust  that  in  a  little  while,  there  will  be  few  of  our  rich 
men  who,  through  carelessness  or  covetousness,  thus  forfeit  the 
glorious  office  which  is  intended  for  their  hands.  I  said,  just 
now,  that  wealth  ill-used  was  as  the  net  of  the  spider,  entan- 
gling and  destroying:  but  wealth  well  used,  is  as  the  net  of  the 
(••acred  fisher  who  gathers  souls  of  men  out  of  the  deep.  A 
limo  will  come — I  do  not  think  even  now  it  is  far  from  us — 
when  this  golden  net  of  the  world's  wealth  will  be  spread 
abroad  as  the  flaming  meshes  of  morning  cloud  are  over  the 
sky;  bearing  with  them  the  joy  of  light  and  the  dew  of  the 
moaning,  as  w'l  as  the  summons  to  honorable  and  peaceful 


412  MORALS    AXD   RELIGION. 

toil.  What  less  can  we  hope  from  your  wealth  than 
this,  rich  men  of  England,  whon  once  you  feel  fully  how,  by 
the  strength  of  your  possessions — not,  observe,  by  the  exhaus- 
tion, but  by  the  administration  of  them  and  the  power — you 
can  direct  the  acts, — command  the  energies — inform  the 
ignorance, — prolong  the  existence,  of  the  whole  human 
race ;  and  how,  even  of  worldly  wisdom,  which  man  employs? 
faithfully,  it  is  true,  not  only  that  her  ways  are  pleasantness, 
but  that  her  paths  are  peace  ;  and  that,  for  all  the  childrer 
of  men,  as  well  as  for  those  to  whom  she  is  given,  Length 
of  days  are  in  her  right  hand,  as  in  her  left  hand  Riches  and 
Honor? 

"We  are  too  much  in  the  habit  of  considering  happy  accidents 
as  what  are  called  "special  Providences;"  and  thinking  that 
when  any  great  work  needs  to  be  done,  the  man  who  is  to  do 
it  will  certainly  be  pointed  out  by  Providence,  be  he  shepherd 
or  sea-boy ;  and  prepared  for  his  work  by  all  kinds  of  minor 
providences,  in  the  best  possible  way.  Whereas  all  the 
analogies  of  God's  operations  in  other  matters  prove  the 
contrary  of  this;  we  find  that  "of  thousand  seeds,  He*  often 
brings  but  one  to  bear,"  often  not  one;  and  the  one  seed 
which  He  appoints  to  bear  is  allowed  to  bear  crude  or  perfect 
fruit  according  to  the  dealings  of  the  husbandman  \vith  it. 
And  there  cannot  be  a  doubt  in  the  mind  of  any  person 
accustomed  to  take  broad  and  logical  views  of  the  world's 
history,  that  its  events  are  ruled  by  Providence  in  pre<  is .-ly 
the  same  manner  as  its  harvests;  that  the  seeds  of  good  am) 
evil  are  broadcast  among  men,  just  as  the  seeds  of  thistles  ami 
fruits  are ;  and  that  according  to  the  force  of  our  industry, 
and  wisdom  of  our  husbandry,  the  ground  will  bring  forth  to 
us  figs  or  thistles.  So  that  when  it  seems  needed  that  a  certain 
work  should  be  done  for  the  world,  and  no  man  is  there  to  do 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF    SPECIAL   PROVIDENCES.  413 

it,  we  have  no  right  to  say  that  God  did  not  wish  it  to  be  done , 
and  therefore  sent  no  man  able  to  do  it.  The  probability  (if  I 
wrote  my  own  convictions,  I  should  say  certainty)  is,  that  He 
sent  many  men,  hundreds  of  men,  able  to  do  it ;  and  that  we 
have  rejected  them,  or  crushed  them ;  by  our  previous  folly  of 
conduct  or  of  institution,  we  have  rendered  it  impossible  to 
distinguish,  or  impossible  to  reach  them ;  and  when  the  need 
for  them  comes,  and  we  suffer  for  the  want  of  them,  it  is  not 
that  God  refuses  to  send  us  deliverers,  and  specially  appoints 
all  our  consequent  sufferings ;  but  that  He  has  sent,  and  we  have 
refused,  the  deliverers ;  and  the  pain  is  then  wrought  out  by  His 
eternal  law,  as  surely  as  famine  is  wrought  out  by  eternal  law 
for  a  nation  which  will  neither  plough  nor  sow.  ]tfo  less  are 
we  in  error  in  supposing,  as  we  so  frequently  do,  that  if  a  man 
be  found,  he  is  sure  to  be  in  all  respects  fitted  for  the  work  to 
be  done,  as  the  key  is  to  the  lock ;  and  that  every  accident  which 
happened  in  the  forging  him,  only  adapted  him  more  truly  to 
the  wards.  It  is  pitiful  to  hear  historians  beguiling  themselves 
and  their  readers,  by  tracing  in  the  early  history  of  great  men, 
the  minor  circumstances  which  fitted  them  for  the  work  they 
did,  without  ever  taking  notice  of  the  other  circumstances 
which  as  assuredly  unfitted  them  for  it ;  so  concluding  that 
miraculous  interposition  prepared  them  in  all  points  for  every- 
thing, and  that  they  did  all  that  could  have  been  desired  or 
hoped  for  from  them :  whereas  the  certainty  of  the  matter  is 
that,  throughout  their  lives,  they  were  thwarted  and  corrupted 
by  some  things  as  certainly  as  they  were  helped  and  disciplined 
by  others ;  and  that,  in  the  kindliest  and  most  reverent  view 
which  can  justly  be  taken  of  them,  they  were  but  poor  mistaken 
Creatures,  struggling  with  a  world  more  profoundly  mistaken 
than  they; — assuredly  sinned  against,  or  sinning  in  thousands 
of  ways,  and  bringing  out  at  last  a  maimed  result — not  what 
they  might  or  ought  to  have  done,  but  all  that  could  be  dona 


414  MORALS    AXD    RELIGION. 


against  the   world's  resistance,   and  in   spite   of  theii    own 
sorrowful  falsehood  to  themselves. 

And  this  being  so,  it  is  the  practical  duty  of  a  wise  nation. 
first  to  withdraw,  as  far  as  may  be,  its  youth  from  destructive 
influences  ;  —  then  to  try  its  material  as  far  as  possible,  ami  to 
lose  the  use  of  none  that  is  good.  J.  do  not  mean  by  "  with- 
drawing from  destructive  influences"  the  keeping  of  youths 
out  of  trials  ;  but  the  keeping  them  out  of  the  way  of  things 
purely  and  absolutely  mischievous.  I  do  not  mean  that  we 
should  shade  our  green  corn  in  all  heat,  and  shelter  it  in  all 
frost,  but  only  that  we  should  dyke  out  the  inundation  from 
it,  and  drive  the  fowls  away  from  it.  Let  your  youth  labor 
and  suffer  ;  but  do  not  let  it  starve,  nor  steal,  nor  blaspheme. 

Examine  well  the  channels  of  your  admiration,  and  you  will 
find  that  they  are,  in  verity,  as  unchangeable  as  the  channels 
of  your  heart's  blood  ;  that  just  as  by  the  pressure  of  a  bandage, 
or  by  perpetual  and  unwholesome  action  of  some  part  of  the 
body,  that  blood  may  be  wasted  or  arrested,  and  in  its  stagnancy 
cease  to  nourish  the  frame,  or  in  its  disturbed  flow  afiect  it  with 
incurable  disease,  so  also  admiration  itself  may,  by  the  bandages 
of  fashion,  bound  close  over  the  eyes  and  the  arteries  of  the  soul, 
be  arrested  in  its  natural  pulse  and  healthy  flow;  but  that 
whenever  the  artificial  pressure  is  removed,  it  will  return  into 
that  bed  which  has  been  traced  for  it  by  the  finger  of  God. 

Custom  has  no  real  influence  upon  our  feelings  of  the  beautiful, 
except  in  dulling  and  checking  them.  You  see  the  broad  blue 
s'cy  every  day  over  your  heads;  but  you  do  not  for  that  reason 
determine  blue  to  be  more  or  less  beautiful  than  you  did  at.  first  ; 
you  are  unaccustomed  to  see  stones  as  blue  as  the  sapphire,  but 
you  do  not  for  that  reason  think  the  sapphire  less  beautiful  than 
other  stones.  The  blue  color  is  everlastingly  appointed  by  the 
Deity  to  be  a  source  of  delight. 


ROMANCE    AND    UTOPI ANISM.  416 

Let  us  think  for  a  few  moments  what  romance  and  Utopianism 
mean. 

First,  romance.  In  consequence  of  the  many  absurd  fictions 
which  long  formed  the  elements  of  romance  writing,  the  word 
romance  is  sometimes  taken  as  synonymous  with  falsehood 
Thus  the  French  talk  of  Des  Romans,  and  thus  the  English 
use  the  word  Romancing. 

But  in  this  sense  we  had  much  Letter  use  the  word  falsehood 
at  once.  It  is  far  plainer  and  clearer.  And  if  in  this  sense  I  put 
anything  romantic  before  you,  pray  pay  no  attention  to  it,  or 
to  me. 

In  the  second  place.  Because  young  people  are  particularly 
apt  to  indulge  in  reverie,  and  imaginative  pleasures,  and  to 
neglect  their  plain  and  practical  duties,  the  word  romantic  has 
come  to  signify  weak,  foolish,  speculative,  unpractical,  unprin- 
cipled. In  all  these  cases  it  Avould  be  much  better  to  say  weak, 
foolish,  unpractical,  unprincipled.  The  words  are  clearer.  If  in 
this  sense,  also,  I  put  anything  romantic  before  you,  pray  pay 
no  attention  to  me. 

The  real  and  proper  use  of  the  word  romantic  is  simply  to 
characterise  an  improbable  or  unaccustomed  degree  of  beauty, 
sublimity,  or  virtue.  For  instance,  in  matters  of  history,  is  not 
the  Retreat  of  the  Ten  Thousand  romantic  ?  Is  not  the  death 
of  Leonidas  ?  of  the  Horatii  ?  On  the  other  hand,  you  find 
nothing  romantic,  though  much  that  is  monstrous,  in  the 
excesses  of  Tiberius  or  Commodus.  So  again,  the  battle  of 
Aginconrt  is  romantic,  and  of  Bannockburn,  simply  because 
there  was  an  extraordinary  display  of  human  virtue  in  both 
those  battles.  But  there  is  no  romance  in  the  battles  of  the 
last  Italian  campaign,  in  which  mere  feebleness  and  distrust 
were  on  one  side,  mere  physical  force  on  the  other.  And  even 
in  fiction,  the  opponents  of  virtue,  in  order  to  be  romantic, 
must  have  sublimity  mingled  with  their  vice.  It  is  not  the 


416  MOKALS    AXD    RELIGION. 

knave,  not  the  ruffian,  that  are  romantic,  but  the  giant  and  tlu 
dragon ;  and  these,  not  because  they  are  false,  but  because 
they  are  majestic.  So  again  as  to  beauty.  You  feel  that 
armor  is  romantic  because  it  is  a  beautiful  dress,  and  you  are 
not  used  to  it.  You  do  not  feel  there  is  anything  romantic  in 
the  paint  and  shells  of  a  Sandwich  Islander,  for  these  are  not 
beautiful. 

So,  then,  observe,  this  feeling  which  you  are  accustomed  to 
despise — this  secret  and  poetical  enthusiasm  in  all  your  hearts, 
which,  as  practical  men,  you  try  to  restrain — is  indeed  one  of 
the  holiest  parts  of  your  being.  It  is  the  instinctive  delight 
in,  and  admiration  for,  sublimity,  beauty,  and  virtue,  unusually 
manifested.  And  so  far  from  being  a  dangerous  guide,  it  ig 
the  truest  part  of  your  being.  It  is  even  truer  than  your 
consciences.  A  man's  conscience  may  be  utterly  perverted 
and  led  astray;  but  so  long  as  the  feelings  of  romance  endure 
within  us,  they  are  unerring — they  are  as  true  to  what  is  right 
and  lovely  as  the  needle  to  the  north  ;  and  all  that  you  have 
to  do  is  to  add  to  the  enthusiastic  sentiment,  the  majestic 
judgment — to  mingle  prudence  and  foresight  witli  imagina- 
tion and  admiration,  and  you  have  the  perfect  human  soul. 
But  the  great  evil  of  these  days  is  that  we  try  to  destroy  the 
romantic  feeling,  instead  of  bridling  and  directing  it.  Mark 
what  Young  says  of  the  men  of  the  world : 

"Tley,  who  think  nought  so  strong  of  the  romance, 
So  rank  knight-errant,  as  a  real  friend." 

And  they  are  right.  True  friendship  is  romantic,  to  the  men 
of  the  world — true  affection  is  romantic — true  religion  la 
romantic;  and  if  you  were  to  ask  me  who  of  ail  powerful  and 
popular  writers  in  the  cause  of  error  had  wrought  most  harm 
to  their  race,  I  should  hesitate  in  reply  whether  to  name 


QV1XOTISM,    OR    UTOPIAXISM.  411 

Voltaire  or  Byron,  or  the  last  most  ingenious  and  most  venom 
DUS  of  the  degraded  philosophers  of  Germany,  or  rather 
Cervantes,  for  he  cast  scorn  upon  the  holiest  principles  of 
fiu inanity — he,  of  all  men,  most  helped  forward  the  terrible 
change  in  the  soldiers  of  Europe,  from  the  spirit  of  Bayard  to 
the  spirit  of  Bonaparte,*  helped  to  change  loyalty  into  license, 
protection  into  plunder,  truth  into  treachery,  chivalry  into  sel 
fishness ;  and  since  his  time,  the  purest  impulses  and  the  noblest 
purposes  have  perhaps  been  oftener  stayed  by  the  devil,  under 
the  name  of  Quixotism,  than  under  any  other  base  name  or 
false  allegation. 

Quixotism,  or  Utopianism :  that  is  another  of  the  devil's 
pet  words.  I  believe  the  quiet  admission  which  we  are 
all  of  us  so  ready  to  make,  that,  because  things  have  long  been 
wrong,  it  is  impossible  they  should  ever  be  right,  is  one  of 
the  most  fatal  sources  of  misery  and  crime  from  which  thig 
world  suffers.  Whenever  you  hear  a  man  dissuading  you  from 
attempting  to  do  well,  on  the  ground  that  perfection  is 
"  Utopian,"  beware  of  that  man.  Cast  the  word  out  of  your 
dictionary  altogether.  There  is  no  need  for  it.  Things  are 
either  possible  or  impossible — you  can  easily  determine  which, 
in  any  given  state  of  human  science.  If  the  thing  is  impossi- 
ble, you  need  not  trouble  yourselves  about  it ;  if  possible,  try 
for  it.  It  is  very  Utopian  to  hope  for  the  entire  doing  away 
with  drunkenness  and  misery  out  of  the  Canongate ;  but  the 
Ut  opianism  is  not  our  business — the  work  is.  It  is  Utopian  to 
hope  to  give  every  child  in  this  kingdom  the  knowledge  of 
God  from  its  youth ;  but  the  Utopianism  is  not  our  business—- 
the  icork  is. 


*  I  mean  no  scandal  against  the  present  emperor  of  tue  French,  whoae  truth 
has,  I  believe,  been  as  conspicuous  in  the  late  political  negotiations,  as  t.is  deci- 
siou  anu  prudence  have  been  throughout  the  whole  worse  of  his  government 

18* 


418  MOKALS    AXD    RELIGION. 

You  know  how  often  it  is  difficult  to  be  wisely  charitable,  to 
do  good  without  multiplying  the  sources  of  evil.  You  know 
that  to  give  alms  is  nothing  unless  you  give  thought  also  ;  and 
that  therefore  it  is  written,  not  "blessed  is  he  ihatfeedcth  the 
poor,"  but,  "  blessed  is  he  that  considereth  the  poor."  And 
you  know  that  a  little  thought  and  a  little  kindness  are  often 
worth  more  than  a  great  deal  of  money. 

Now  this  charity  of  thought  is  not  merely  to  be  exercised 
towards  the  poor  ;  it  is  to  be  exercised  towards  all  men. 
There  is  assuredly  no  action  of  our  social  life,  however  unim- 
portant, which,  by  kindly  thought,  may  not  be  made  to  have 
a  beneficial  influence  upon  others ;  and  it  is  impossible  to  spi-nd 
the  smallest  sum  of  money,  for  any  not  absolutely  nect's-ary 
purpose,  without  a  grave  responsibility  attaching  to  the  man- 
ner of  spending  it.  The  object  we  ourselves  covet  may,  indeed, 
be  desirable  and  harmless,  so  far  as  we  are  concerned,  but  the 
providing  us  with  it  may,  perhaps,  be  a  very  prejudicial  occu 
pation  to  some  one  else.  And  then  it  becomes  instantly  a 
moral  question,  whether  we  are  to  indulge  ourselves  or  not. 
Whatever  we  wish  to  buy,  we  ought  first  to  consider  not  only 
if  the  thing  be  fit  for  us,  but  if  the  manufacture  of  it  be  a  whole- 
some and  happy  one ;  and  if,  on  the  whole,  the  sum  we  are 
going  to  spend  will  do  as  much  good  spent  in  this  way  as  it 
would  if  spent  in  any  other  way.  It  may  be  said  that  we  have 
not  time  to  consider  all  this  before  we  make  a  purchase.  But 
no  time  could  be  spent  in  a  more  important  duty ;  and  God 
never  imposes  a  duty  without  giving  the  time  to  do  it.  Let 
us,  however,  only  acknowledge  the  principle ; — once  make  up 
your  mind  to  allow  the  consideration  of  the  effect  of  your 
purchases  to  regulate  the  kind  of  your  purchase,  and  you  will 
soon  easily  find  grounds  enough  to  decide  upon.  The  plea  ot 
ignorance  will  never  take  away  our  responsibilities.  It  is  writ- 
ten, "  If  thou  sayest,  Behold  we  knew  it  not ;  doth  not  he 


THE   MANAGEMENT   OF    RICHES.  419 

that  pondereth  the  heart  consider  it  ?  and  he  that  keeptth  thy 
soul,  doth  not  he  know  it  ?" 

There  is  another  branch  of  decorative  art  in  which  I  ara 
sorry  to  say  we  cannot,  at  least  under  existing  circumstances, 
indulge  ourselves,  with  the  hope  of  doing  good  to  anybody,  1 
mean  the  great  and  subtle  art  of  dress. 

And  here  I  must  interrupt  the  pursuit  of  our  subject  for  a 
moment  or  two,  in  order  to  state  one  of  the  principles  of 
political  economy,  which,  though  it  is,  I  believe,  now  sufficiently 
understood  and  asserted  by  the  leading  masters  of  the  science, 
is  not  yet,  I  grieve  to  say,  acted  upon  by  the  plurality  of  those 
who  have  the  management  of  riches.  Whenever  we  spend 
money,  we  of  course  set  people  to  work :  that  is  the  meaning 
of  spending  money ;  we  may,  indeed,  lose  it  without  employing 
anybody  ;  but,  whenever  we  spend  it,  we  set  a  number  of 
people  to  work,  greater  or  less,  of  course,  according  to  the  rate 
of  wages,  but  in  the  long  run,  proportioned  to  the  sum  we 
spend.  Well,  your  shallow  people,  because  they  see  that  how- 
ever they  spend  money  they  are  always  employing  somebody, 
and,  therefore,  doing  some  good,  think  and  say  to  themselves, 
that  it  is  all  one  how  they  spend  it — that  all  their  apparently 
selfish  luxury  is,  in  reality,  unselfish,  and  is  doing  just  as  much 
good  as  if  they  gave  all  their  money  away,  or  perhaps  more 
good;  and  I  have  heard  foolish  people  even  declare  it  is  a 
principle  of  political  economy,  that  whoever  invented  a  new 
want  conferred  a  good  on  the  community.  I  have  not  words 
strong  enough — at  least  I  could  not,  without  shocking  you, 
use  the  words  which  would  be  strong  enough — to  express  my 
estimate  of  the  absurdity  and  the  mischievousness  of  this 
popular  fallacy.  So  putting  a  great  restraint  upon  myself,  and 
using  no  hard  words,  I  will  simply  try  to  state  the  nature  ot 
it,  and  the  extent  of  its  influence. 

Granted,   that   whenever   we   spend   money  for  whatever 


420  MORALS    AND    RELIGION. 

purpose,  we  set  people  to  work ;  and  passing  by,  for  the  moment 
the  question  whether  the  work  we  set  them  to  is  all  equally 
healthy  and  good  for  them,  we  will  assume  that  whenever.  \\  e 
spend  a  guinea  we  provide  an  equal  number  of  people  with 
healthy  maintenance  for  a  given  time.  But,  by  the  way  iu 
which  we  spend  it,  we  entirely  direct  the  labor  of  those 
people  during  that  given  time.  We  become  their  masters 
or  mistresses,  and  we  compel  them  to  produce,  within*  a 
certain  period,  a  certain  article.  Now,  that  article  may 
be  a  useful  and  lasting  one,  or  it  nu.y  be  a  useless  and 
perishable  one — it  may  be  one  useful  to  the  whole  community, 
or  useful  only  to  ourselves.  And  our  selfishness  and  folly, 
or  our  virtue  and  prudence,  are  shown,  not  by  our  spending 
money,  but  by  our  spending  it  for  the  wrong  or  right  thing , 
and  we  are  wise  and  kind,  not  in  maintaining  a  certain  number 
of  people  for  a  given  period,  but  only  in  requiring  them  to 
produce,  during  that  period,  the  kind  of  things  which  phall  be 
useful  to  society,  instead  of  those  which  are  only  useful  to 
ourselves. 

Thus,  for  instance :  if  you  are  a  young  lady,  and  employ  a 
certain  number  of  sempstresses  for  a  given  time,  in  making  a 
given  number  of  simple  and  serviceable  dresses,  suppose,  seven  , 
of  which  you  can  wear  one  yourself  for  half  the  winter,  and 
give  six  away  to  poor  girls  who  have  none,  you  are  spending 
your  money  unselfishly.  But  if  you  employ  the  same  number 
of  sempstresses  for  the  same  number  of  days,  in  making  four, 
or  five,  or  six  beautiful  flounces  for  your  own  ball-dress — 
flounces  which  will  clothe  no  one  but  yourself,  and  which  you 
will  yourself  be  unable  to  wear  at  more  than  one  ball — you  aie 
employing  your  money  selfishly.  You  have  maintained,  indeed, 
in  each  case  the  same  number  of  people ;  but  in  the  one  case  yon 
have  directed  Jieir  labor  to  the  service  of  the  community ;  in 
the  other  ca-se  you  have  consumed  it  wholly  upon  yourself 


THE    MANAGEMENT    OF    RICHES.  421 

I  don't  say  you  are  never  to  do  so ;  I  don't  say  you  ought  not 
sometimes  to  think  of  yourselves  only,  and  to  make  yourselves 
as  pretty  as  you  can ;  only  do  not  confuse  coquettishness  with 
benevolence,  nor  cheat  yourselves  into  thinking  that  all  the 
finery  you  can  wear  is  so  much  put  into  the  hungry  mouths  r»f 
those  beneath  you :  it  is  not  so ;  it  is  what  you  yourselves, 
whether  you  will  or  no,  must  sometimes  instinctively  feel  it  to 
be — it  is  what  those  who  stand  shivering  in  the  streets,  forming 
a  line  to  \vatch  you  as  you  step  out  of  your  carriages,  know  it 
to  be ;  those  fine  dresses  do  not  mean  that  so  much  has  been 
put  into  their  mouths,  but  that  so  much  has  been  taken  out 
of  their  mouths.  The  real  politico-economical  signification  of 
every  one  of  those  beautiful  toilettes,  is  just  this;  that  you 
have  had  a  certain  number  of  people  put  for  a  certain  number 
of  days  wholly  under  your  authority,  by  the  sternest  of  slave- 
masters, — hunger  and  cold  ;  and  you  have  said  to  them,  "  I  will 
feed  you,  indeed,  and  clothe  you,  and  give  you  fuel  for  so  many 
days ;  but  during  those  days  you  shall  work  for  me  only :  your 
little  brothers  need  clothes,  but  you  shall  make  none  for  them* 
your  sick  friend  needs  clothes,  but  you  shall  make  none  for  her 
you  yourself  will  soon  need  another,  and  a  warmer  dress;  but 
you  shall  make  none  for  yourself.  You  shall  make  nothing  but 
lace  and  roses  for  me ;  for  this  fortnight  to  come,  you  shall 
work  at  the  patterns  and  petals,  and  then  I  will  crush  and 
consume  them  away  in  an  hour."  You  will  perhaps  answer — • 
"It  may  not  be  particularly  benevolent  to  do  this,  and  we 
won't  call  it  so ;  but  at  any  rate  we  do  no  wrong  in  taking  their 
labor  when  we  pay  them  their  wages :  if  we  pay  for  their  work 
we  have  a  right  to  it."  No ; — a  thousand  times  no.  The  labor 
which  you  have  paid  for,  docs  indeed  become,  by  the  act  of 
purchase,  your  own  labor:  you  have  bought  the  hands  and 
the  time  of  those  workers ;  they  are,  by  right  and  justice,  your 
own  hands,  your  own  time.  But  have  you  a  rigtt  to  spend 


422  MORALS   AND    RELIGION. 

your  own  time,  to  work  with  your  own  hands,  only  for  yotn 
own  advantage? — much  more,  when,  by  purchase,  you  1m e 
invested  your  own  person  with  the  strength  of  others ;  and 
added  to  your  own  life,  a  part  of  the  life  of  others?  You 
may,  indeed,  to  a  certain  extent,  use  their  labor  for  your 
delight ;  remember,  I  am  making  no  general  assertions  against 
splendor  of  dress,  or  pomp  of  accessaries  of  life ;  on  the  con- 
trary, there  are  many  reasons  for  thinking  that  we  do  not  at 
present  attach  enough  importance  to  beautiful  dress,  as  one 
of  the  means  of  influencing  general  taste  and  character.  But 
I  do  say,  that  you  must  weigh  the  value  of  what  you  ask  these 
workers  to  produce  for  you  in  its  own  distinct  balance  ;  that  on 
its  own  worthiness  or  desirableness  rests  the  question  of  your 
kindness,  and  not  merely  on  the  fact  of  your  having  employed 
people  in  producing  it:  and  I  say  farther,  that  as  long  as  there 
are  cold  and  nakedness  in  the  land  around  you,  so  long  there 
can  be  no  question  at  all  but  that  splendor  of  dress  is  a  crime. 
In  due  time,  when  we  have  nothing  better  to  set  people  to 
work  at,  it  may  be  right  to  let  them  make  lace  and  cut  jewels  ; 
but,  as  long  as  there  are  any  u  ho  have  no  blankets  for  their  beds, 
and  no  rags  for  their  bodies,  so  long  it  is  blanket-making  and 
tailoring  we  must  set  people  to  work  at — not  lace. 

And  it  would  be  strange,  if  at  any  great  assembly  which, 
while  it  dazzled  the  young  and  the  thoughtless,  beguiled  the 
gentler  hearts  that  beat  beneath  the  embroider}-,  with  a  placid 
sensation  of  luxurious  benevolence — as  if  by  all  that  they  woni 
in  waywardness  of  beauty,  comfort  had  first  been  given  to  tin 
distressed,  and  aid  to  the  indigent ;  it  would  be  strange,  1  Bftj . 
if,  for  a  moment,  the  spirits  of  Truth  and  of  Terror,  which 
walk  invisibly  among  the  masques  of  the  earth,  would  lift  the 
dimness  from  our  erring  thoughts,  and  show  us  how — inasmuch 
as  the  sums  exhausted  for  that  magnificence  would  have  given 
back  the  failing  breath  to  many  an  unsheltered  outcast  on  moor 


DBESS    A    MEANS    OF    EDUCATION.  423 

and  street — they  who  wear  it  have  literally  entered  into 
partnership  with  Deatli ;  and  dressed  themselves  in  his  spoils 
Yes,  if  the  veil  could  be  lifted  not  only  from  your  thoughts 
but  from  your  human  sight,  you  would  see — the  angels  do  see 
— on  those  gay  white  dresses  of  yours,  strange  dark  spots 
and  crimson  patterns  that  you  knew  not  of — spots  of  the  inex- 
tinguishable red  that  all  the  seas  cannot  wash  away ;  yes,  and 
among  the  pleasant  flowers  that  crown  your  fair  heads,  and 
glow  on  your  wreathed  hair,  you  would  see  that  one  weed  was 
always  twisted  which  no  one  thought  of — the  grass  that  grows 
on  graves. 

It  was  not,  however,  this  last,  this  clearest  and  most  appal- 
ling \  iew  of- our  subject,  that  I  intended  to  ask  you  to  take  this 
evening ;  only  it  is  impossible  to  set  any  part  of  the  matter  hi 
its  true  light,  until  we  go  to  the  root  of  it.  But  the  point 
which  it  is  our  special  business  to  consider  is,  not  whether 
costliness  of  dress  is  contrary  to  charity ;  but  whether  it  is  not 
contrary  to  mere  worldly  wisdom:  whether,  even  supposing 
we  knew  that  splendor  of  dress  did  not  cost  suffering  or 
hunger,  we  might  not  put  the  splendor  better  in  other  things 
than  dress.  And,  supposing  our  mode  of  dress  were  really 
graceful  or  beautiful,  this  might  be  a  very  doubtful  question ; 
for  I  believe  true  nobleness  of  dress  to  be  an  important  means 
of  education,  as  it  certainly  is  a  necessity  to  any  nation  Avhich 
wishes  to  possess  living  art,  concerned  with  portraiture  of 
human  nature.  No  good  historical  painting  ever  yet  existed, 
or  ever  can  exist,  where  the  dresses  of  the  people  of  the  time 
arc  not  beautiful :  and  had  it  not  been  for  the  lovely  and  fantasti 
dressing  of  the  13th  to  the  IGth  centuries,  neither  French,  nor 
Florentine,  nor  Venetian  art  could  have  risen  to  anything  like 
the  rank  it  reached.  Still,  even  then,  the  best  dressing  was 
nevei  the  costliest ;  and  its  effect  depended  much  more  on  its 
beautiful,  and,  in  early  times,  modest,  arrangement,  and  on  the 


424  MORALS  A:XD  RELIGION. 

simple  and  lovely  masses  of  its  color,  than  Dn  gorgeousne.ss 
of  clasp  or  embroidery.  Whether  we  can  ever  return  to  any 
of  those  more  perfect  types  of  form  is  questionable ;  but  there 
can  be  no  question,  that  all  the  money  we  spend  on  the  forms 
of  dress  at  present  worn,  is,  so  far  as  any  good  purpose  is 
concerned,  wholly  lost.  Mind,  in  saying  this,  I  reckon  among 
good  purposes  the  purpose  which  young  ladies  are  said  some- 
times to  entertain — of  being  married ;  but  they  would  be 
married  quite  as  soon  (and  probably  to  wiser  and  bettor 
husbands)  by  dressing  quietly  as  by  dressing  brilliantly  ;  and  I 
believe  it  would  only  be  needed  to  lay  fairly  and  largely  before 
them  the  real  good  which  might  be  effected  by  the  sums  they 
spend  in  toilettes,  to  make  them  trust,  at  once  only  to  their  brigh  t 
eyes  and  braided  hair  for  all  the  mischief  they  have  n.  mind  to 
I  wish  we  could,  for  once,  get  the  statistics  of  a  London  season 
There  was  much  complaining  talk  in  Parliament  of  tin 
vast  sum  the  nation  has  given  for  the  best  Paul  Verones*. 
in  Venice — £14,000  :  I  wonder  what  the  nation  meanwhile  has 
given  for  its  ball-dresses !  Suppose  we  could  see  the  London 
milliners*  bills,  simply  for  unnecessary  breadths  of  slip  and 
flounces,  from  April  to  July ;  I  wonder  whether  £14,000  would 
cover  them.  But  the  breadths  of  slip  and  flounces  are  by  this 
time  as  much  lost  and  vanished  as  last  year's  snow ;  only  they 
have  done  less  good :  but  the  Paul  Veronese  will  last  for 
centuries,  if  we  take  care  of  it ;  and  yet  we  grumble  at  the 
price  given  for  the  painting,  while  no  one  grumbles  at  the 
price  of  pride. 

Time  does  not  permit  me  to  go  into  any  farther  illustration 
of  the  various  modes  in  which  we  build  our  statue  out  of  snow, 
•ind  waste  our  labor  on  things  that  vanish. 

Things  which  are  a  mere  luxury  to  one  person  are  a  mean? 
of  intellectual  occupation  to  another.  Flowers  in  a  London 


KEAL   PKOPERTY.  425 

ball-room  are  a  luxury;  iu  a  botanical  garden,  a  delight  of  the 
intellect ;  and  in  their  native  fields,  both  ;  while  the  most 
noble  works  of  art  are  continually  made  material  of  vulgar 
luxury  or  of  criminal  pride;  but,  when  rightly  used,  property 
of  this  class  is  the  only  kind  which  deserves  the  name  of  real 
property ;  it  is  the  only  kind  which  a  man  can  .truly  be  said  to 
"  possess."  What  a  man  eats,  or  drinks,  or  wears,  so  long  as 
it  is  only  what  is  needful  for  life,  can  no  more  be  thought  of 
as  his  possession  than  the  air  he  breathes.  The  air  is  as  need- 
ful to  him  as  the  food ;  but  we  do  not  talk  of  a  man's  wealth 
of  air,  and  what  food  or  clothing  a  man  possesses  more  than 
he  himself  requires,  must  be  for  others  to  use  (and,  to  him, 
therefore,  not  a  real  property  in  itself,  but  only  a  means  of 
obtaining  some  real  property  in  exchange  for  it).  Whereas 
the  things  that  give  intellectual  or  emotional  enjoyment  may 
be  accumulated  and  do  not  perish  in  using ;  but  continually 
supply  new  pleasures  and  new  powers  of  giving  pleasures  to 
others.  And  these,  therefore,  are  the  only  things  which  can 
rightly  be  thought  of  as  giving  "  wealth  "  or  "  well  being." 
Food  conduces  only  to  "  being,"  but  these  to  "  well  being." 
And  there  is  not  any  broader  general  distinction  between 
lower  and  higher  orders  of  men  than  rests  on  their  possession 
of  this  real  property.  The  human  race  may  be  properly 
divided  by  zoologists  into  "  men  who  have  gardens,  libraries, 
or  works  of  art ;  and  who  have  none ;"  and  the  former  class 
will  include  all  noble  persons,  except  only  a  few  who  make  the 
world  their  garden  or  museum  ;  while  the  people  who  have 
not,  or,  which  is  the  same  thing,  do  not  care  for  gardens  or 
libraries,  but  care  for  nothing  but  money  or  luxuries,  Avill 
include  none  but  ignoble  persons :  only  it  is  necessary  to 
understand  that  I  mean  by  the  term  "  garden  "  as  much  the 
Carthusian's  plot  of  ground  fifteen  feet  square  between  hia 
monastery  buttresses,  as  I  do  the  grounds  of  Chatsworth  or 


426  MORALS   AND    RELIGION. 

Kew  ;  and  I  mean  by  the  term  "  art "  as  much  the  old  sailor't 
print  of  the  Arethusa  bearing  up  to  engage  the  Belle  Poule, 
as  I  do  Raphael's  "Disputa,"  and  even  rather  more ;  for  wher 
abundant,  beautiful  possessions  of  this  kind  are  almost  always 
associated  with  vulgar  luxury,  and  become  then  anything  but 
indicative  of  noble  character  in  their  possessors.  The  ideal  of 
human  life  is  a  union  of  Spartan  simplicity  of  manners  with 
Athenian  sensibility  and  imagination,  but  in  actual  results,  we 
are  continually  mistaking  ignorance  for  simplicity,  and  sensu- 
ality for  refinement. 

In  general,  pride  is  at  the  bottom  of  all  great  mistakes.  All 
the  other  passions  do  occasional  good,  but  wherever  pride  puts 
in  its  word,  everything  goes  wrong,  and  what  it  might  be  desi- 
rable to  do  quietly  and  innocently,  it  is  morally  dangerous  to 
do  proudly. 

To  be  content  in  utter  darkness  and  ignorance  is  indeed 
unmanly,  and  therefore  we  think  that  to  love  light  and  seek 
knowledge  must  always  be  right.  Yet  wherever  pride  has 
any  share  in  the  work,  even  knowledge  and  light  may  be  ill 
pursued.  Knowledge  is  good,  and  light  is  good,  yet  man 
perished  in  seeking  knowledge,  and  moths  perished  in  seeking 
light ;  and  if  we,  who  are  crushed  before  the  moth,  will  not 
accept  such  mystery  as  is  needful  for  us,  we  shall  perish  in  like 
manner.  But,  accepted  in  humbleness,  it  instantly  become 
an  element  of  pleasure ;  and  I  think  that  every  rightly  con- 
stituted mind  ought  to  rejoice,  not  so  much  in  knowing  any- 
thing clearly,  as  in  feeling  that  there  is  infinitely  more  which 
it  i-annot  know.  None  but  proud  or  weak  men  would  raouvr. 
over  this,  for  we  may  always  know  more  if  we  choose,  by 
working  on  ;  but  the  pleasure  is,  I  think,  to  humble  people,  in 
knowing  that  the  journey  is  endless,  the  treasure  inexhausti 


CONCEPTION    OF   GOD.  427 

ble,-  watching  the  cloud  still  march  before  them  with  its 
suimnitless  pillar,  and  being  sure  that,  to  the  end  of  time  and 
to  the  length  of  eternity,  the  mysteries  of  its  infinity  will  still 
open  farther  and  farther,  their  dimness  being  the  sign  and 
necessary  adjunct  of  their  inexhaustibleness.  I  know  ther 
are  an  evil  mystery  and  a  deathful  dimness, — the  mystery  of 
the  great  Babylon — the  dimness  of  the  sealed  eye  and  soul ; 
but  do  not  let  us  confuse  these  with  the  glorious  mystery  of 
the  things  which  the  angels  "  desire  to  look  into,"  or  with  the 
dimness  which,  even  before  the  clear  eye  and  open  soul,  still 
rests  on  sealed  pages  of  the  eternal  volume. 

The  ardor  and  abstraction  of  the  spiritual  life  are  to  be 
honored  in  themselves,  though  the  one  may  be  misguided  and 
the  other  deceived  ;  and  the  deserts  of  Osma,  Assisi,  and 
Monte  Viso  are  still  to  be  thanked  for  the  zeal  they  gave,  or 
guarded,  whether  we  find  it  in  St.  Francis  and  St.  Dominic, 
or  in  those  whom  God's  hand  hid  from  them  in  the  clefts  of 
the  rocks. 

We  refine  and  explain  ourselves  into  dim  and  distant  suspi- 
cion of  an  inactive  God,  inhabiting  inconceivable  places,  and 
fading  into  the  multitudinous  formalisms  of  the  laws  of 
Nature. 

All  errors  of  this  kind — and  in  the  present  day  we  are  in 
constant  and  grievous  danger  of  falling  into  them — arise  from 
the  originally  mistaken  idea  that  man  can,  "  by  searching,  find 
out  God — find  out  the  Almighty  to  perfection  ;"  that  is  to  say, 
by  help  of  courses  of  reasoning  and  accumulations  of  science, 
apprehend  the  nature  of  the  Deity  in  a  more  exalted  and  more 
accurate  manner  than  in  a  state  of  comparative  ignorance ; 
whereas  it  is  clearly  nccessai-y,  from  the  beginning  to  the  end 
of  time,  that  God's  way  of  revealing  Himself  to  His  creatures 
sbould  be  a  simple  way,  which  all  those  creatures  may  under- 


428  MORALS   AXD    RELIGION. 

stand.  Whether  taught  or  untaught,  whether  of  mean  cnpa 
city  cr  enlarged,  it  is  necessary  that  communion  with  their 
Creator  should  be  possible  to  all ;  and  the  admission  to  such 
communion  must  be  rested,  not  on  their  having  a  knowledge 
of  astronomy,  but  on  their  having  a  human  soul.  In  order  to 
render  this  communion  possible,  the  Deity  has  stooped  from 
His  throne,  and  has  not  only,  in  the  person  of  the  Son,  taken 
upon  Him  the  veil  of  our  human  flesh,  but,  in  the  person  of  the 
Father,  taken  upon  Him  the  veil  of  our  Human  thovqhts,  and 
permitted  us,  by  His  own  spoken  authority,  to  conceive  Him 
simply  and  clearly  as  a  loving  Father  and  Friend ; — a  being 
to  be  walked  with  and  reasoned  with ;  to  be  moved  by  oui 
entreaties,  angered  by  our  rebellion,  alienated  by  our  coldness, 
pleased  by  our  love,  and  glorified  by  our  labor ;  and,  finally, 
to  be  beheld  in  immediate  and  active  presence  in  all  the  pow- 
ers and  changes  of  creation.  This  conception  of  God,  which 
is  the  child's,  is  evidently  the  only  one  which  can  be  universal, 
and  therefore  the  only  one  which  for  us  can  be  true.  The 
moment  that,  in  our  pride  of  heart,  we  refuse  to  accept  the 
condescension  of  the  Almighty,  and  desire  Him,  instead  of 
stooping  to  hold  our  hands,  to  rise  up  before  us  into  His  glory, 
— we  hoping  that  by  standing  on  a  grain  of  dust  or  two  of 
human  knowledge  higher  than  our  fellows,  we  may  behold  the 
Creator  as  He  rises, — God  takes  us  at  our  word ;  He  rises, 
into  His  own  invisible  and  inconceivable  majesty;  He  goes 
forth  upon  the  ways  which  are  not  our  ways,  and  retires  into 
the  thoughts  which  are  not  our  thoughts ;  and  we  are  left 
alone.  And  presently  we  say  in  our  vain  hearts,  "  There  Is  no 
God." 

It  may  be  proved,  with  much  certainty,  that  God  intends  no 
man  to  live  in  this  world  without  working:  but  it  seems  to  me 
no  less  evident  that  He  intends  every  man  to  be  happy  in  his 


MAN    SHOULD    BE    HAPPY    IX    HIS    WORK.  429 

It  is  written,  "in  the  sweat  of  thy  brow,"  but  it  wag 
never  written,  "  in  the  breaking  of  thine  heart,"  thou  shalt  eat 
bread :  and  I  find  that,  as  on  the  one  hand,  infinite  misery  13 
caused  by  idle  people,  who  both  fail  in  doing  what  was  appointed 
for  them  to  do,  and  set  in  motion  various  springs  of  mischief  in 
matters  in  which  they  shtwld  have  had  no  concern,  so  on  the 
other  hand,  no  small  misery  is  caused  by  over-worked  and 
unhappy  people,  in  the  aanc  views  which  they  necessarily  take 
up  themselves,  and  force  upon  others,  of  work  itself.  "Were  it 
not  so,  I  believe  the  fact  of  their  being  unhappy  is  in  itself  a 
violation  of  divine  law,  and  a  sign  of  some  kind  of  folly  or  sin 
in  their  way  of  life.  Now  in  order  that  people  may  be  happy 
in  their  work,  these  three  things  are  needed :  They  must  be  fit 
for  it :  They  must  not  do  too  much  of  it :  and  they  must  have 
a  sense  of  success  in  it — not  a  doubtful  sense,  such  as  needs  some 
testimony  of  other  people  for  its  confirmation,  but  a  sure  sense, 
or  rather  knowledge,  that  so  much  work  has  been  done  well, 
and  fruitfully  done,  whatever  the  world  may  say  or  think  about 
it.  So  that  in  order  that  a  man  may  be  happy,  it  is  necessary 
that  he  should  not  only  be  capable  of  his  work,  but  a  good  judge 
of  his  work. 

The  first  thing  then  that  he  has  to  do,  if  unhappily  his  parents 
or  masters  have  not  done  it  for  him,  is  to  find  out  what  he  is  fit 
for.  In  which  inquiry  a  man  may  be  very  safely  guided  by  hia 
likings,  if  he  be  not  also  guided  by  his  pride.  People  usually 
reason  in  some  such  fashion  as  this :  "I  don't  seem  quite  fit  for 

a  head-manager  in  the  firm  of &  Co.,  therefore,  in  all 

probability,  I  am  fit  to  be  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer." 
Whereas,  they  ought  rather  to  reason  thus:  "I  don't  seem 

quite  fit  to  be  head-manager  in  the  firm  of &  Co.,  but 

I  dare  say  I  might  do  something  in  a  small  greengrocery  busi- 
ness ;  I  used  to  be  a  good  judge  of  pease ;"  that  is  to  say,  always 
trying  lower  instead  of  trying  higher,  until  they  find  bottom1 


430  MORALS    AND    RELIGION. 

once  well  set  on  the  ground,  a  man  may  build  up  by  degrpre, 
safely,  instead  of  disturbing  every  one  in  his  neighborhood  by 
perpetual  catastrophes.  But  this  kind  of  humility  is  rendered 
especially  difficult  in  these  days,  by  the  contumely  thrown  on 
men  in  humble  employments.  The  very  removal  of  the  massy 
bars  which  once  separated  one  class*  of  society  from  another, 
lias  rendered  it  tenfold  more  shameful  in  foolish  people's,  i.  e.  in 
most  people's  eyes,  to  remain  in  the  lower  grades  of  it,  than 
ever  it  was  before.  When  a  man  born  of  an  artisan  was  looked 
upon  as  an  entirely  different  species  of  animal  from  a  man  born 
of  a  noble,  it  made  him  no  more  uncomfortable  or  ashamed  to 
remain  that  different  species  of  animal,  than  it  makes  a  horse 
ashamed  to  remain  a  horse,  and  not  to  become  a  giraffe.  But 
now  that  a  man  may  make  money,  and  rise  in  the  world,  and 
associate  himself,  unreproached,  with  people  once  far  above 
him,  not  only  is  the  natural  discontentedness  of  humanity 
developed  to  an  unheard-of  extent,  whatever  a  man's  position, 
but  it  becomes  a  veritable  shame  to  him  to  remain  in  the  state 
he  was  born  in,  and  everybody  thinks  it  his  duty  to  try  to  be  a 
"  gentleman."  Persons  who  have  any  influence  in  the  manage- 
ment of  public  institutions  for  charitable  education  know  how 
common  this  feeling  has  become.  Hardly  a  day  passes  but  they 
receive  letters  from  mothers  who  want  all  their  six  or  eight  sons 
to  go  to  college,  and  make  the  grand  tour  in  the  long  vacation, 
and  who  think  there  is  something  wrong  in  the  foundations  of 
society,  because  this  is  not  possible.  Out  of  every  ten  letters 
of  this  kind,  nine  will  allege,  as  the  reason  of  the  writers' 
importunity,  their  desire  to  keep  their  families  in  such  and 
s  ich  a  "station  of  life."  There  i?  no  real  desire  for  the  safety, 
the  discipline,  or  the  moral  good  of  the  children,  only  a  panic 
horror  of  the  inexpressibly  pitiable  calamity  of  their  living  a 
ledge  or  i\vo  lower  on  the  molehill  of  the  world — a  calamity  tc 
be  averted  at  any  cost  whatever,  of  struggle,  anxiety,  and 


PEENICIOUSKESS    OP    OVEE-WOKKING.  431 

shortening  of  life  itself.  I  do  not  believe  that  any  greater  good 
could  be  achieved  for  the  country,  than  the  change  in  public 
feeling  on  this  head,  which  might  be  brought  about  by  a  few 
benevolent  men,  undeniably  in  the  class  of  "  gentlemen,"  who 
would,  on  principle,  enter  into  some  of  our  commonest  trades, 
and  make  them  honorable ;  showing  that  it  was  possible  for  a 
man  to  retain  his  dignity,  and  remain,  in  the  best  sense,  a 
gentleman,  though  part  of  his  time  was  every  day  occupied  in 
manual  labor,  or  even  in  serving  customers  over  a  counter. 
I  do  not  in  the  least  see  why  courtesy,  and  gravity,  and  sym- 
pathy with  the  feelings  of  others,  and  courage,  and  truth,  and 
piety,  and  what  else  goes  to  make  up  a  gentleman's  character, 
should  not  be  found  behind  a  counter  as  well  as  elsewhere,  if 
they  were  demanded,  or  even  hoped  for,  there. 

Let  us  suppose,  then,  that  the  man's  way  of  life  and  manner 
of  work  have  been  discreetly  chosen  ;  then  the  next  thing  to  be 
required  is,  that  he  do  not  over-work  himself  therein.  I  am  not 
going  to  say  anything  here  about  the  various  errors  in  our 
systems  of  society  and  commerce,  which  appear  (I  am  not 
sure  if  they  ever  do  more  than  appear)  to  force  us  to  over-work 
ourselves  merely  that  we  may  live ;  nor  about  the  still  more 
fruitful  cause  of  unhealthy  toil — the  incapability,  in  many  men, 
of  being  content  with  the  little  that  is  indeed  necessary  to 
their  happiness.  I  have  only  a  word  or  two  to  say  about  one 
special  cause  of  over-work — the  ambitious  desire  of  doing  great 
or  clever  things,  and  the  hope  of  accomplishing  them  by 
immense  efforts  :  hope  as  vain  as  it  is  pernicious ;  not  only 
making  men  over-work  themselves,  but  rendering  all  the  work 
they  do  unwholesome  to  them.  I  say  it  is  a  vain  hope,  and  let 
the  reader  be  assured  of  this  (it  is  a  truth  all-important  to  the 
best  interests  of  humanity).  No  great  intellectual  thing  was 
ever  clone  Inj  great  effort ;  a  great  tiling  can  only  be  done  by  a 
great  man,  and  he  does  it  icithout  effort.  Nothing  is,  at  present, 


432  MORALS    A>*D    RELIGION. 

less  understood  by  us  than  this: — nothing  is  more  necessary  to 
be  understood.  Let  me  try  to  say  it  as  clearly,  and  explain  it 
as  fully  as  I  may. 

I  have  said  no  great  intellectual  thing :  for  I  do  not  mean  the 
assertion  to  extend  to  things  moral.  On  the  contrary,  it  seem.* 
to  me  that  just  because  we  are  intended,  as  long  as  we  live,  to 
be  in  a  state  of  intense  moral  effort,  we  are  not  intended  to  be 
in  intense  physical  or  intellectual  effort.  Our  full  energies  are 
to  be  given  to  the  soul's  work — to  the  great  fight  with  the 
Dragon — the  taking  the  kingdom  of  heaven  by  force.  But  the 
body's  work  and  head's  work  are  to  be  done  quietly,  and 
comparatively  without  effort.  Neither  limbs  nor  brain  are  ever 
to  be  strained  to  their  utmost ;  that  is  not  the  way  in  which  the 
greatest  quantity  of  work  is  to  be  got  out  of  them :  they  are 
never  to  be  worked  furiously,  but  with  tranquillity  and  con- 
stancy. We  are  to  follow  the  plough  from  sunrise  to  sunset, 
but  not  to  pull  in  race-boats  at  the  twilight :  we  shall  get  no  fruit 
of  that  kind  of  work,  only  disease  of  the  heart. 

How  many  pangs  would  be  spared  to  thousands,  if  this  great 
truth  and  law  were  but  once  sincerely,  humbly  understood, — 
that  if  a  great  thing  can  be  done  at  all,  it  can  be  done  ea>ily  ; 
that,  when  it  is  needed  to  be  done,  there  is  perhaps  only  one 
man  in  the  world  who  can  do  it ;  but  he  can  do  it  without  any 
trouble — without  more  trouble,  that  is,  than  it  costs  small  people 
1 3  do  small  things ;  nay,  perhaps,  with  less.  And  yet  what  truth 
lies  more  openly  on  the  surface  of  all  human  phenomena  ?  Is  not 
the  evidence  of  Ease  on  the  very  front  of  all  the  greatest  works 
in  existence  ?  Do  they  not  say  plainly  to  us,  not,  "  there  has 
been  a  great  effort  here,"  but,  "  there  has  been  a  great  power 
here"  ?  It  is  not  the  weariness  of  mortality,  but  the  strength 
of  divinity,  which  we  have  to  recognise  in  all  mighty  things; 
and  that  is  just  what  we  now  never  recognise,  but  think  that 
we  aro  to  do  great  things,  by  help  of  iron  bars  and  perspiration  ; 


GENIUS    AXD    LABOR.  433 

— alas !  we  shall  do  nothing  that  way  but  lose  some  pounds  of 
our  own  weight. 

Yet,  let  me  not  be  misunderstood,  nor  this  great  truth  be 
supposed  anywise  resolvable  into  the  favorite  dogma  of  young 
men,  that  they  need  not  work  if  they  have  genius.  The  fact 
is  that  a  man  of  genius  is  always  far  more  ready  to  work  than 
other  people,  and  get  so  much  more  good  from  the  work  that 
he  does,  and  is  often  so  little  conscious  of  the  inherent  divinity 
in  himself,  that  he  is  very  apt  to  ascribe  all  his  capacity  to  his 
work,  and  to  tell  those  who  ask  how  he  came  to  be  what  he  is : 
"  If  I  am  anything,  which  I  much  doubt,  I  made  myself  so 
merely  by  labor."  This  was  Newton's  way  of  talking,  and  I 
suppose  it  would  be  the  general  tone  of  men  whose  genius  had 
been  devoted  to  the  physical  sciences.  Genius  in  the  Arts 
must  commonly  be  more  self-conscious,  but  in  whatever  field, 
it  will  always  be  distinguished  by  its  perpetual,  steady,  well 
directed,  happy,  and  faithful  labor  in  accumulating  and  dis- 
ciplining its  powers,  as  well  as  by  its  gigantic,  incommunicable 
facility  in  exercising  them.  Therefore,  literally,  it  is  no  man's 
business  whether  he  has  genius  or  not :  work  he  must,  whatever 
he  is,  but  quietly  and  steadily ;  and  the  natural  and  unforced 
results  of  such  work  will  be  always  the  things  that  God  meant 
him  to  do,  and  will  be  his  best.  No  agonies  nor  heart-rendings 
will  enable  him  to  do  any  better.  If  he  be  a  great  man,  they 
will  be  great  tilings;  it' a  small  man,  small  things;  but  always, 
if  thus  peacefully  done,  good  and  right;  always,  if  restlessly 
and  ambitiously  done,  false,  hollow,  and  despicable. 

Tlu'ii  the  third  thing  needed  was,  I  said,  that  a  man  should 
be  a  good  judge  of  his  work;  and  this  chiefly  that  he  may  not 
be  dependent  upon  popular  opinion  for  the  manner  of  doing  it, 
but  also  that  he  may  have  the  just  encouragement  of  the  sense 
of  progress,  and  an  honest  consciousness  of  victory  :  how  else 
can  he  become 

19 


484  MORALS   AND   RELIGION. 

"  That  awful  independent  on  to-morrow, 
Whose  yesterdays  look  backwards  with  a  smile." 

I  ain  persuaded  that  the  real  nourishment  and  help  of  such  a 
feeling  as  this  is  nearly  unknown  to  half  the  workmen  of  tho 
present  day.  For  whatever  appearance  of  self-complacency 
there  may  be  in  their  outward  bearing,  it  is  visible  enough,  by 
their  feverish  jealousy  of  each  other,  how  little  confidence  they 
have  in  the  sterling  value  of  their  several  doings.  Conceit 
may  puff  a  man  up,  but  never  prop  him  up ;  and  there  is  too 
visible  distress  and  hopelessness  in  men's  aspects  to  admit  of 
the  supposition  that  they  have  any  stable  support  of  faith  in 
themselves. 

I  have  stated  these  principles  generally,  because  there  is  no 
branch  of  labor  to  which  they  do  not  apply :  But  there  is  one 
in  which  our  ignorance  or  forgetfulness  of  them  has  caused  an 
incalculable  amount  of  suffering :  and  I  would  endeavor  now 
to  reconsider  them  with  especial  reference  to  it, — the  branch 
of  the  Arts. 

In  general,  the  men  who  are  employed  in  the  Arts  have 
freely  chosen  their  profession,  and  suppose  themselves  to  have 
special  faculty  for  it ;  yet,  as  a  body,  they  are  not  happy  men. 
For  which  this  seems  to  me  the  reason,  that  they  are  expected, 
and  themselves  expect,  to  make  their  bread  by  being  clever — 
not  by  steady  or  quiet  work ;  and  are,  therefore,  for  the  most 
part,  trying  to  be  clever,  and  so  living  hi  an  utterly  false  state 
of  mind  and  action. 

This  is  the  case,  to  the  same  extent,  in  no  other  profession  or 
employment.  A  lawyer  may  indeed  suspect  that,  unless  lie 
lias  more  wit  than  those  around  him,  he  is  not  likely  to  advance 
in  his  profession ;  but  he  will  not  be  always  thinking  how  he  is 
to  display  his  wit.  He  will  generally  understand,  early  in  his 
career,  that  wit  must  be  left  to  take  care  of  itself,  and  that  h 
is  hard  knowledge  of  law  and  vigorous  examination  and  collation 


FUNCTION    OF   THE   AKTIST.  485 

of  the  facts  of  every  case  entrusted  to  him,  which  his  clients  will 
mainly  demand  .  this  it  is  which  he  has  to  be  paid  for ;  and  thia 
is  healthy  and  measurable  labor,  payable  by  the  hour.  If  he 
happen  to  have  keen  natural  perception  and  quick  wit,  these 
will  come  into  play  in  their  due  time  and  place,  but  he  will  not 
think  of  them  as  his  chi  if  power ;  and  if  he  have  them  not,  he 
may  still  hope  that  industry  and  conscientiousness  may  enable 
him  to  rise  in  his  profession  without  them.  Again  in  the  case 
of  clergymen :  that  they  are  sorely  tempted  to  display  their 
eloquence  or  wit,  none  who  know  their  own  hearts  will  deny, 
but  then  they  know  this  to  be  a  temptation :  they  never  would 
suppose  that  cleverness  was  all  that  was  to  be  expected  from 
them,  or  would  sit  down  deliberately  to  write  a  clever  sermon : 
even  the  dullest  or  vainest  of  them  would  throw  some  veil 
over  their  vanity,  and  pretend  to  some  profitableness  of  purpose 
in  what  they  did.  They  would  not  openly  ask  of  their  hearers 
— Did  you  think  my  sermon  ingenious,  or  my  language  poetical? 
They  would  early  understand  that  they  were  not  paid  for  being 
ingenious,  nor  called  to  be  so,  but  to  preach  truth ;  that  if  they 
happened  to  possess  wit,  eloquence,  or  originality,  these  would 
appear  and  be  of  service  in  due  time,  but  were  not  to  be  con- 
tinually sought  after  or  exhibited :  and  if  it  should  happen  that 
they  had  them  not,  they  might  still  be  serviceable  pastors 
without  them. 

Not  so  with  the  unhappy  artist.  No  one  expects  any  honest 
or  useful  work  of  him ;  but  every  one  expects  him  to  be 
ingenious.  Originality,  dexterity,  invention,  imagination, 
every  thing  is  asked  of  him  except  what  alone  is  to  be  had  foi 
asking — honesty  and  sound  wrork,  and  the  due  discharge  of 
his  function  as  a  painter.  What  function  ?  asks  the  reader  in 
some  surprise.  He  may  well  ask ;  for  I  suppose  few  painter? 
have  any  idea  what  their  function  is,  or  even  that  they  have 
any  at  all 


436  MORALS    AND    UELTGION. 

And  yet  surely  it  is  not  so  difficult  to  discover.  The  faculties, 
which  when  a  man  finds  in  himself,  he  resolves  to  be  a  painter, 
are,  I  suppose,  intenseness  of  observation  and  facility  of  imita- 
tion. The  man  is  created  an  observer  and  an  imitator ;  and  h« 
function  is  to  convey  knowledge  to  his  fellow-men,  of  such 
things  as  cannot  be  taught  otherwise  than  ocularly.  For  a  long 
time  this  function  remained  a  religious  one :  it  was  to  impress 
upon  the  popular  mind  the  reality  of  the  objects  of  faith,  and 
the  truth  of  the  histories  of  Scripture,  by  giving  visible  form  to 
both.  That  function  has  now  passed  away,  and  none  has  as  yet 
taken  its  place.  The  painter  has  no  profession,  no  purpose.  lie  is 
an  idler  on  the  earth,  chasing  the  shadows  of  his  own  fancies. 

Uut  he  was  never  meant  to  be  this. 

I  do  not  know  anything  more  ludicrous  among  the  self-decep- 
tions of  well-meaning  people  than  their  notion  of  patriotism, 
as  requiring  them  to  limit  their  efforts  to  the  good  of  their  own 
country; — the  notion  that  chanty  is  a  geographical  virtue,  and 
that  what  it  is  holy  and  righteous  to  do  for  people  on  one  bank 
of  a  river,  it  is  quite  improper  and  unnatural  to  do  for  people 
on  the  other.  It  will  be  a  wonderful  thing,  some  day  or  other, 
for  the  Christian  world  to  remember,  that  it  went  on  thinking 
for  two  thousand  years  that  neighbors  were  neighbors  at 
Jerusalem,  but  not  at  Jericho;  a  wonderful  thing  for  us  English 
to  reflect,  in  after-years,  how  long  it  was  before  we  could 
shake  hands  with  anybody  across  the  shallow  salt  wash,  which 
the  very  chalk-dust  of  its  two  shores  whitens  from  Folkstone 
to  Arnbleteuse. 

It  would  be  well  if,  instead  of  preaching  continually  about 
the  doctrine  of  faith  and  good  works,  our  clergymen  would 
simply  explain  to  their  people  a  little  what  good  works  mean. 
There  is  not  a  chapter  in  all  the  book  we  profess  to  believe 


THE   PERFECT    BOOST OMIST.  437 

more  specially  and  directly  written  for  England,  than  the 
second  of  Habakkuk,  and  I  never  in  all  my  life  heard  one  of 
its  practical  texts  preached  from.  I  suppose  the  clergymen 
are  all  afraid,  and  know  that  their  flocks,  while  they  will  sit 
quite  politely  to  hear  syllogisms  out  of  the  epistle  to  the 
Romans,  would  get  restive  directly  if  they  ever  pressed  a 
practical  text  home  to  them.  But  we  should  have  no  mercan- 
tile catastrophes,  and  no  distressful  pauperism,  if  we  only  read 
often,  and  took  to  heart,  those  plain  words :  "  Yea,  also, 
because  he  is  a  proud  man,  neither  keepeth  at  home,  who 
eulargeth  his  desire  as  hell,  and  cannot  be  satisfied, — Shall  not 
all  these  take  up  a  parable  against  him,  and  a  taunting  proverb 
against  him,  and  say,  '  Woe  to  him  that  increaseth  that  which 
is  not  his :  and  to  him  that  ladeth  himself  with  thick  day?  " 
(What  a  glorious  history,  in  one  metaphor,  of  the  life  of  a 
man  greedy  of  fortune.)  "  Woe  to  him  that  coveteth  an  evil 
covetousness  that  he  may  set  his  nest  on  high.  Woe  to  him 
that  buildeth  a  town  with  blood,  and  stablisheth  a  city  by 
iniquity.  Behold,  is  it  not  of  the  Lord  of  Hosts  that  the  peo- 
ple shall  labor  in  the  very  fire,  and  the  people  shall  weary 
themselves  for  very  vanity." 

"  She  riseth  while  it  is  yet  night,  and  giveth  meat  to  her 
household,  and  a  portion  to  her  maidens.  She  maketh  herself 
coverings  of  tapestry,  h  3r  clothing  is  silk  and  purple.  Strength 
and  honor  are  in  he/  Clothing,  and  she  shall  rejoice  in  time  to 
come." 

Now,  you  will  observe  that  in  this  description  of  the  perfect 
economist,  or  mistress  of  a  household,  there  is  a  studied 
expression  of  the  balanced  division  of  her  care  between  the 
two  great  objects  of  utility  and  splendor;  in  her  right  band, 
food  and  flax,  for  life  and  clothing  ;  in  her  left  hand,  the  pur- 
ple and  the  needle-work,  for  honor  and  for  beauty.  All  per- 


438  MORALS   AND    RELIGION. 

feet  housewifery  or  national  economy  is  known  by  those  two 
divisions;  wherever  either  is  wanting,  the  economy  is  imper 
feet.  If  the  motive  of  pomp  prevails,  and  the  care  of  the 
national  economist  is  directed  only  to  the  accumulation  of  gold, 
and  of  pictures,  and  of  silk  and  marble,  you  know  at  once  that 
the  tune  must  soon  come  when  all  these  treasures  shall  be 
scattered  and  blasted  hi  national  ruin.  If,  on  the  contrary,  the 
element  of  utility  prevails,  and  the  nation  disdains  to  occupy 
itself  in  any  wise  with  the  arts  of  beauty  or  delight,  not  only 
a  certain  quantity  of  its  energy  calculated  for  exercise  in  those 
arts  alone  must  be  enti  -ely  wasted,  which  is  bad  economy,  but 
also  the  passions  connected  with  the  utilities  of  property  become 
morbidly  strong,  and  a  mean  lust  of  accumulation,  merely  for 
the  sake  of  accumulation,  or  even  of  labor,  merely  for  the 
sake  of  labor,  will  banish  at  least  the  serenity  and  the  morality 
of  life,  as  completely,  and  perhaps  more  ignobly,  than  even 
the  lavishness  of  pride,  and  the  lightness  of  pleasure.  And 
similarly,  and  much  more  visibly,  in  private  and  household  eco- 
nomy, you  may  judge  always  of  its  perfectness  by  its  fair 
balance  between  the  use  and  the  pleasure  of  its  possessions. 

That  modern  science,  with  all  its  additions  to  the  comforts 
of  life,  ar.d  to  the  fields  of  rational  contemplation,  has  placed 
the  existing  races  of  mankind  on  a  higher  platform  than  j •re- 
ceded them,  none  can  doubt  for  an  instant ;  and  I  believe  the 
position  in  which  we  find  ourselves  is  somewhat  analogous  to 
that  of  thoughtful  and  laborious  youth  succeeding  a  restless 
and  heedless  infancy.  Not  long  ago,  it  was  said  to  me  by  one 
of  the  masters  of  modem  sciences :  "  When  men  invented  the 
locomotive,  the  child  was  learning  to  go  ;  when  they  invented 
the  telegraph,  it  was  learning  to  speak."  He  looked  forward 
to  the  manhood  of  mankind,  as  assuredly  the  nobler  in  propor- 
tion to  the  slowness  of  its  development.  What  might  not  be 


PROGRESS.  439 

expected  from  the  prime  and  middle  strength  of  the  order  of 
existence  whose  infancy  had  lasted  six  thousand  years  ?  And, 
indeed,  I  think  this  the  truest,  as  weJl  as  the  most  cheering, 
view  that  we  can  take  of  the  world's  history.  Little  progress 
has  been  made  as  yet.  Base  war,  lying  policy,  thoughtless 
cruelty,  senseless  improvidence, — all  things  which,  in  nations, 
are  analogous  to  the  petulance,  cunning,  impatience,  and  care- 
lessness of  infancy, — have  been,  up  to  this  hour,  as  character- 
istic of  mankind  as  they  were  in  the  earliest  periods ;  so  that 
we  must  either  be  driven  to  doubt  of  human  progress  at  all, 
or  look  upon  it  as  in  its  very  earliest  stage.  Whether  the 
opportunity  is  to  be  permitted  us  to  redeem  the  hours  that  we 
have  lost ;  whether  He  in  whose  sight  a  thousand  years  are  as 
one  day,  has  appointed  us  to  be  tried  by  the  continued  pos- 
session of  the  strange  powers  with  which  he  has  lately  endowed 
us ;  or  whether  the  period  of  childhood  and  of  probation  arc 
to  cease  together,  and  the  youth  of  mankind  is  to  be  one 
which  shall  prevail  over  death,  and  bloom  for  ever  in  the  midst 
of  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth,  are  questions  with  which  we 
have  no  concern.  It  is  indeed  right  that  we  should  look  for, 
and  hasten,  so  far  as  in  us  lies,  the  coming  of  the  Day  of  God  ; 
but  not  that  we  should  check  any  human  efforts  by  anticipa- 
tions of  its  approach.  We  shall  hasten  it  best  by  endeavor- 
ing to  work  out  the  tasks  that  are  appointed  for  us  here ;  and, 
therefore,  reasoning  as  if  the  world  were  to  continue  under  its 
existing  dispensation,  and  the  powers  which  have  just  been 
granted  to  us  were  to  be  continued  through  myriads  of  future 
ages. 

In  the  early  ages  of  Christianity,  there  was  little  care  taken 
to  analyse  character.  One  momentous  question  was  heard 
over  the  whole  world  ;  "  Dost  thou  believe  in  the  Lord  with 
all  thine  heart  ?"  There  was  bftt  one  division  among  men,— 


440  KOEALS   AND   RELIGION. 

the  great  unatoneable  division  between  the  discipie  and  adver 
sary.  The  love  of  Christ  was  all,  and  in  all ;  and  in  proper ticn 
to  the  nearness  of  their  memory  of  His  person  and  teat- lung,  men 
understood  the  infinity  of  the  requirements  of  the  moral  law, 
and  the  manner  in  which  it  alone  could  be  fulfilled.  The  early 
Christians  felt  that  virtue,  like  sin,  was  a  subtle  universal  thing, 
entering  into  every  act  and  thought,  appearing  outwardly  in 
ten  thousand  diverse  ways,  diverse  according  to  the  separate 
framework  of  every  heart  in  wliich  it  dwelt ;  but  one  and  the 
same  always  in  its  proceeding  from  the  love  of  God,  as  sin  is 
one  and  the  same  in  proceeding  from  hatred  of  God.  And  in 
their  pure,  early,  and  practical  piety  they  saw  that  there  was 
no  need  for  codes  of  morality,  or  systems  of  metaphysics. 
Their  virtue  comprehended  everything,  entered  into  every- 
thing ;  it  was  too  vast  and  too  spiritual  to  be  defined ;  but 
there  was  no  need  of  its  definition.  For  through  faith,  work- 
ing by  love,  they  knew  that  all  human  excellence  would  be 
developed  in  due  order ;  but  that,  without  faith,  neither  reason 
could  define,  nor  effort  reach,  the  lowest  phase  of  Christian 
virtue.  And  therefore,  when  any  of  the  Apostles  have  occa- 
sion to  describe  or  enumerate  any  forms  of  vice  or  virtue  by 
name,  there  is  no  attempt  at  system  in  their  words.  They 
vise  them  hurriedly  and  energetically,  heaping  the  thoughts 
one  upon  another,  in  order  as  far  as  possible  to  fill  the  reader's 
mind  with  a  sense  of  infinity  both  of  crime  and  of  righteous- 
ness. Hear  St.  Paul  describe  sin:  "Being  filled  with  all 
unrighteousness,  fornication,  wickedness,  covetousness,  mali- 
ciousness ;  full  of  envy,  murder,  debate,  deceit,  malignity  , 
whisperers,  backbiters,  haters  of  God,  despiteful,  proud,  boast- 
ers, inventors  of  evil  things,  disobedient  to  parents,  without 
understanding,  covenant  breakers,  without  natural  aflection, 
implacable,  unmerciful."  There  is  evidently  here  an  intense 
feeling  of  the  universality  of  sin ;  and  in  order  to  express  it, 


THE   TEACHING    OI-'   THE    APOSTLES.  441 

the  Apostle  hurries  his  words  confusedly  together,  little  caring 
about  their  order,  as  knowing  all  the  vices  to  be  indissolubly 
connected  one  with  another.  It  would  be  utterly  vain  tc 
endeavor  to  arrange  his  expressions  as  if  they  had  been 
intended  for  the  ground  of  any  system,  or  to  give  any  philo- 
sophical definition  of  the  vices.  So  also  hear  him  speaking  of 
virtue:  "Rejoice  in  the  Lord.  Let  your  moderation  be 
known  unto  all  men.  Be  careful  for  nothing,  but  in  every- 
thing let  your  requests  be  made  known  unto  God;  and  what- 
soever things  are  honest,  whatsoever  things  are  just,  whatso- 
ever things  are  pure,  whatsoever  things  are  lovely,  whatsoever 
things  are  of  good  report,  if  there  be  any  virtue,  and  if  there  lie 
•my  praise,  think  on  these  things."  Observe,  he  gives  up  all 
attempt  at  definition ;  be  leaves  the  definition  to  every  man'  a 
heart,  though  he  writes  so  as  to  mark  the  overflowing  fulness 
of  his  own  vision  of  virtue.  And  so  it  is  in  all  writings  of  the 
Apostles ;  their  manner  of  exhortation,  and  the  kind  of  con- 
duct they  press,  vary  according  to  the  persons  they  address, 
and  the  feeling  of  the  moment  at  which  they  write,  and  never 
show  any  attempt  at  logical  precision.  And,  although  the 
words  of  their  Master  are  not  thus  irregularly  uttered,  but 
are  weighed  like  fine  gold,  yet,  even  in  His  teaching,  there  is 
no  detailed  or  organized  system  of  morality ;  but  the  command 
only  of  that  faith  and  love  which  were  to  embrace  the  whole 
being  of  man ;  "  On  these  two  commandments  hang  all  the 
luw  and  the  prophets."  Here  and  there  an  incidental  warning 
against  this  or  that  more  dangerous  form  of  vice  or  error, 
'•Take  heed  and  beware  of  covetousness,"  "Beware  of  the 
leaven  of  the  Pharisees,"  here  and  there  a  plain  example  of 
the  meaning  of  Christian  love,  as  in  the  parables  of  the  Sama- 
ritan and  the  Prodigal,  and  His  own  perpetual  example:  these 
were  the  elements  of  Christ's  constant  teachings;  for  the  Bea- 
titudes, which  are  the  only  approximation  to  anything  like  a 

19* 


442  MOKALS   AND    RELIGION 

systematic  statement,  belong  to  different  conditions  and  cha- 
racters of  individual  men,  not  to  abstract  virtues.  And  all 
early  Christians  taught  in  the  same  manner.  They  nevei 
cared  to  expound  the  nature  of  this  or  that  virtue ;  for  the} 
knew  that  the  believer  who  had  Christ,  had  all.  Did  he  need 
fortitude  ?  Christ  was  his  rock :  Equity  ?  Christ  was  hia 
righteousness :  Holiness  ?  Christ  was  his  sanctification :  Li- 
berty ?  Christ  was  his  redemption :  Temperance  ?  Christ 
was  his  ruler :  Wisdom  ?  Christ  was  his  light :  Fruitfulness  ? 
Christ  was  the  truth :  Charity  ?  Christ  was  love. 

Now,  exactly  in  proportion  as  the  Christian  religion  became 
less  vital,  and  as  the  various  corruptions  which  time  and  Satan 
brought  into  it  were  able  to  manifest  themselves,  the  person 
and  offices  of  Christ  were  less  dwelt  upon,  and  the  virtues  of 
Christians  more.  The  Life  of  the  Believer  became  in  some 
degree  separated  from  the  Life  of  Christ;  and  his  virtue, 
instead  of  being  a  stream  flowing  forth  from  the  throne  of 
God,  and  descending  upon  the  earth,  began  to  be  regarded 
by  him  as  a  pyramid  upon  earth,  which  he  had  to  build  up, 
step  by  step,  that  from  the  top  of  it  he  might  reach  the 
Heavens. 

I  understand  not  the  most  dangerous,  because  most  attrac- 
tive form  of  modern  infidelity,  which,  pretending  to  exalt  the 
beneficence  of  the  Deity,  degrades  it  into  a  reckless  infinitude 
of  mercy,  and  blind  obliteration  of  the  work  of  sin  ;  and  which 
does  this  chiefly  by  dwelling  on  the  manifold  appearances  of 
God's  kindness  on  the  face  of  creation.  Such  kindness  is 
indeed  everywhere  and  always  visible ;  but  not  alone.  Wrath 
and  threatening  are  invariably  mingled  with  the  love ;  and  in 
the  utmost  solitudes  of  nature,  the  existence  of  Hell  seems  to 
me  as  legibly  declared  by  a  thousand  spiritual  utterances,  as 
that  of  Heaven.  It  is  well  for  us  to  dwell  with  thankfulness 


THE   PULPIT.  413 

on  the  unfolding  of  the  flower,  and  the  falling  of  the  dew,  and 
the  sleep  of  the  green  fields  in  the  sunshine,  but  the  blastea 
trunk,  the  barren  rock,  the  moaning  of  the  bleak  winds,  the 
roar  of  the  black,  perilous,  merciless  whirlpools  of  the  moun 
tain  streams,  the  solemn  solitudes  of  moors  and  seas,  the  con- 
tinual fading  of  all  beauty  into  darkness,  and  of  all  strength 
into  dust,  have  these  no  language  for  us  ?  We  may  seek  to 
escape  their  teachings  by  reasonings  touching  the  good  which 
is  wrought  out  of  all  evil ;  but  it  is  vain  sophistry.  The  good 
succeeds  to  the  evil  as  day  succeeds  the  night,  but  so  also  the 
evil  to  the  good.  Gerizim  and  Ebal,  birth  and  death,  light 
and  darkness,  heaven  and  hell,  divide  the  existence  of  man. 
and  his  Futurity. 

And  because  the  thoughts  of  the  choice  we  have  to  make 
between  these  two,  ought  to  rule  us  continually,  not  so  much 
in  our  own  actions  (for  these  should,  for  the  most  pai~t,  be 
governed  by  settled  habit  and  principle)  as  in  our  manner 
of  regarding  the  lives  of  other  men,  and  our  own  responsibili- 
ties with  respect  to  them;  therefore,  it  seems  to  me  that  the 
healthiest  state  into  which  the  human  mind  can  be  brought  is 
that  which  is  capable  of  the  greatest  love,  and  the  greatest  awe. 

When  the  sermon  is  good  we  need  not  much  concern  our- 
selves about  the  form  of  the  pulpit.  But  sermons  cannot 
always  be  good ;  and  I  believe  that  the  temper  in  which  the 
congregation  set  themselves  to  listen  may  be  in  some  degree 
modified  by  their  perception  of  fitness  or  unfitness,  impressive- 
ness  or  vulgarity,  in  the  disposition  of  the  place  appointed  for 
the  speaker, — not  to  the  same  degree,  but  somewhat  in  the 
same  way,  that  they  may  be  influenced  by  his  own  gestures  or 
expression,  irrespective  of  the  sense  of  what  he  says.  I  believe 
therefore,  in  the  first  place,  that  pulpits  ought  never  to  be 
highly  decorated ;  the  speaker  is  apt  to  look  mean  or  duninu 


444  MORALS    AXD    REMGIOX. 

live  if  the  pulpit  is  either  on  a  very  large  scale  or  covered  with 
splendid  ornament,  and  if  the  interest  of  the  sermon  should 
flag,  the  mind  is  instantly  tempted  to  wander.  I  have  observe*! 
that  in  almost  all  cathedrals,  when  the  pulpits  are  peculiarly 
magnificent,  sermons  are  not  often  preached  from  them  ;  but 
rather,  and  especially  if  for  any  important  purpose,  from  some 
temporary  erection  in  other  pails  of  the  building:  and  though 
this  may  often  be  done  because  the  architect; has  consulted  the 
effect  upon  the  eye  more  than  the  convenience  of  the  ear  in 
the  placing  of  his  larger  pulpit,  I  think  it  also  proce> 
some  measure  from  a  natural  dislike  in  the  preacher  to  match 
himself  with  the  magnificence  of  the  rostrum,  lest  the  sermon 
should  not  be  thought  worthy  of  the  place.  Yet,  this  \\  ill 
rather  hold  of  the  colossal  sculptures,  and  pyramids  of  i'mt.is- 
tic  tracery  which  encumber  the  pulpits  of  Flemish  and  German 
churches,  than  of  the  delicate  mosaics  and  ivory-like  carving 
of  the  Romanesque  basilicas,  for  when  the  form  is  kept  simple, 
much  loveliness  of  color  and  costliness  of  work  may  be  intro- 
duced, and  yet  the  speaker  not  be  thrown  into  the  shade  by 
them. 

But,  in  the  second  place,  whatever  ornaments  we  admit 
ought  clearly  to  be  of  a  chaste,  grave,  and  noble  kind;  and 
what  furniture  we  employ,  evidently  more  for  the  honoring  of 
God's  word  than  for  the  ease  of  the  preacher.  For  there  are 
two  ways  of  regarding  a  sermon,  either  as  a  human  compos- 
lion,  or  a  Divine  message.  If  we  look  upon  it  entirely  as  the 
first,  and  require  our  clergymen  to  finish  it  Avith  their  utmost 
care  and  learning,  for  our  better  delight  whether  of  ear  or 
intellect,  we  shall  necessarily  be  led  to  expect  much  formality 
and  stateliness  in  its  delivery,  and  to  think  that  all  is  not  well" 
if  the  pulpit  have  not  a  golden  fringe  round  it,  ami  a  goodly 
cushion  in  front  of  it,  and  if  the  sermon  be  not  fairly  written 
in  a.  black  book,  to  be  smoothed  upon  the  cushion  in  a  majes 


THE   PULPIT.  445 

tic  manner  before  beginning ;  all  this  we  snail  duly  come  to 
expect:  but  we  shall  at  the  same  time  consider  the  treatise 
thus  prepared  as  something  to  which  it  is  our  duty  to  listen 
without  restlessness  for  half  an  hour  or  three  quarters,  but 
which,  when  that  duty  has  been  decorously  performed,  we 
may  dismiss  from  our  minds  in  happy  confidence  of  being  pro 
vided  with  another  when  next  it  shall  be  necessary.  But  if 
once  we  begin  to  regard  the  preacher,  whatever  his  faults,  as 
a  man  sent  with  a  message  to  us,  which  it  is  a  matter  of  life  or 
death  whether  we  hear  or  refuse ;  if  we  look  upon  him  as  set 
in  charge  over  many  spirits  in  danger  of  ruin,  and  having 
allowed  to  him  but  an  hour  or  two  in  the  seven  days  to  speak 
to  them  ;•  if  we  make  some  endeavor  to  conceive  how  precious 
these  hours  ought  to  be  to  him,  a  small  vantage  on  the  side  of 
God  after  his  flock  have  been  exposed  for  six  days  together  to 
the  full  weight  of  the  world's  temptation,  and  he  has  been 
forced  to  watch  the  thorn  and  the  thistle  springing  in  their  hearts, 
and  to  see  what  wheat  had  been  scattered  there  snatched  from 
the  wayside  by  this  wild  bird  and  the  other,  and  at  last,  when 
breathless  and  weary  with  the  week's  labor  they  give  him 
this  interval  of  imperfect  and  languid  hearing,  he  has  but 
thirty  minutes  to  get  at  the  separate  hearts  of  a  thousand  men, 
to  convince  them  of  all  their  weaknesses,  to  shame  them  for 
all  their  sins,  to  warn  them  of  all  their  dangers,  to  try  by  this 
way  and  that  to  stir  the  hard  fastenings  of  those  doors  where 
the  Master  himself  has  stood  and  knocked  yet  none  opened,  and 
to  call  at  the  openings  of  those  dark  streets  where  Wisdom 
herself  hath  stretched  forth  her  hands  and  no  man  regarded, — 
thirty  minutes  to  1'aise  the  dead  in, — let  us  but  once  under- 
stand and  feel  this,  and  we  sha.l  look  with  changed  eyes  upon 
that  frippery  of  gay  furniture  about  the  place  from  whicli  the 
message  of  judgment  must  be  delivered,  which  cither  breathes 
upon  the  dry  bones  that  they  may  live,  or,  if  ineffectual,  remain? 


446  MORALS   AND   RELIGION. 

recorded  in  condemnation,  perhaps  against  the  utterer  and 
listener  alike,  but  assuredly  against  one  of  them.  We  shall  not 

• 

so  easily  bear  with  the  silk  and  gold  upon  the  seat  of  judgment, 
nor  with  ornament  of  oratory  in  the  mouth  of  the  messenger; 
we  shall  wish  that  his  words  may  be  simple,  even  when  the)- 
are  sweetest,  and  the  place  from  which  he  speaks  like  a  marble 
rock  in  the  desert,  about  which  the  people  have  gathered  in 
their  thirst. 

MODERN   EDUCATION. 

By  a  large  body  of  the  people  of  England  and  of  Europe  a 
man  is  called  educated  if  he  can  write  Latin  verses,  and  con- 
strue a  Greek  chorus.  By  some  few  more  enlightened  per- 
sons it  is  confessed  that  the  construction  of  hexameters  is  not 
in  itself  an  important  end  of  human  existence ;  but  they  say, 
that  the  general  discipline  which  a  course  of  classical  reading 
gives  to  the  intellectual  powers,  is  the  final  object  of  our  scho- 
lastical  institutions. 

But  it  seems  to  me,  there  is  no  small  error  even  in  this  last 
and  more  philosophical  theory.  I  believe,  that  what  it  is  most 
honorable  to  know,  it  is  also  most  profitable  to  learn ;  and 
that  the  science  which  it  is  the  highest  power  to  possess,  it  is 
also  the  best  exercise  to  acquire. 

And  if  this  be  so,  the  question  as  to  what  should  be  the 
material  of  education,  becomes  singularly  simplified.  It  might 
be  matter  of  dispute  what  processes  have  the  greatest  ('fleet 
in  developing  the  intellect;  but  it  can  hardly  be  disputed 
what  facts  it  is  most  advisable  that  a  man  entering  into  life 
should  accurately  know. 

I  believe,  in  brief,  that  lie  ought  to  know  thiee  things : 

First.  Where  he  is. 

Secondly.  Where  he  is  going 


MODERN    EDUCATION.  441 

Thirdly.  What  he  had  best  do  under  those  circumstances. 

First.  Where  he  is. — That  is  to  say,  what  sort  of  a  world 
he  has  got  into  ;  how  large  it  is ;  what  kind  of  creatures  live 
in  it,  and  how ;  what  it  is  made  of,  and  what  may  be  made 
of  it. 

Secondl)  Where  he  is  going. — That  is  to  say,  what  chances 
or  reports  there  are  of  any  other  world  besides  this ;  what 
seems  to  be  the  nature  of  that  other  world;  and  whether,  for 
information  respecting  it,  he  had  better  consult  the  Bible, 
Koran,  or  Council  of  Trent. 

Thirdly.  What  he  had  best  do  under  those  circumstances. 
— That  is  to  say,  what  kind  of  faculties  he  possesses ;  what  are 
the  present  state  and  wants  of  mankind ;  what  is  his  place  in 
society;  and  what  ar^  the  readiest  means  in  hiy  power  of 
attaining  happiness  and  diffusing  it.  The  man  who  knows 
these  things,  and  who  has  had  his  will  so  subdued  in  the 
learning  them,  that  he  is  ready  to  do  what  he  knows  he 
ought,  I  should  call  educated;  and  the  man  who  knows 
them  not,  uneducated,  though  he  could  talk  all  the  tongues 
of  Babel. 

Our  present  European  system  of  so-called  education  ignores, 
or  despises,  not  one,  nor  the  other,  but  all  the  three,  of  these 
great  branches  of  human  knowledge. 

First :  It  despises  Natural  History. — Until  within  the  last 
year  or  two,  the  instruction  in  the  physical  sciences  given  at 
Oxford  consisted  of  a  course  of  twelve  or  fourteen  lectures  on 
the  Elements  of  Mechanics  or  Pneumatics,  and  permission  to 
ride  out  to  Shotover  with  the  Professor  of  Geology.  I  do  not 
know  the  specialities  of  the  system  pursued  in  the  academies 
of  the  Continent ;  but  their  practical  result  is,  that  unless  a 
man's  natural  instincts  urge  him  to  the  pursuit  of  the  physi- 
cal sciences  too  strongly  o  be  resisted,  he  enters  into  life 
utterly  ignorant  of  them.  I  cannot,  within  my  present  limits, 


448  MORALS    AND    11EL1G1OX. 

even  so  much  as  count  the  various  directions  in  which  this 
ignorance  does  evil.  But  the  main  mischief  of  it  is,  that  it 
leaves  the  greater  number  of  men  without  the  natural  food 
which  God  intended  for  their  intellects.  For  one  man  who  is 
fitted  for  the  study  of  words,  fifty  are  fitted  for  the  study  of 
things,  and  were  intended  to  have  a  perpetual,  simple,  and 
religious  delight  in  watching  the  processes,  or  admiring  the 
creatures,  of  the  natural  universe.  Deprived  of  this  source  of 
pleasure,  nothing  is  left  to  them  but  ambition  or  dissipation  ; 
and  the  vices  of  the  upper  classes  of  Europe  are,  I  believe, 
chiefly  to  be  attributed  to  this  single  cause. 

Secondly:  It  despises  Religion. — I  do  not  say  it  despises 
"Theology,"  that  is  to  say,  talk  about  God.  But  it  despises 
"Religion;"  that  is  to  say,  the  "binding"  or  training  to 
God's  service.  There  is  much  talk  and  much  teaching  in  all 
our  academies,  of  which  the  effect  is  not  to  bind,  but  to  1< 
the  elements  of  religious  faith.  Of  the  ten  or  twelve  young 
men  who,  at  Oxford,  were  my  especial  friends,  who  sat  with 
me  under  the  same  lectures  on  Divinity,  or  were  punished  with 
me  for  missing  lecture  by  being  sent  to  evening  prayers, 
four  are  now  zealous  Romanists,  a  large  average  out  of 
twelve  ;  and  while  thus  our  own  universities  profess  to  teach 
Protestantism,  and  do  not,  the  universities  on  the  Continent 
profess  to  teach  Romanism,  and  do  not, — sending  forth  only 
rebels  and  infidels.  During  long  residence  on  the  Continent, 
I  do  not  remember  meeting  with  above  two  or  three  young 
men,  who  either  believed  in  revelation,  or  had  the  grace  to 
hesitate  in  the  assertion  of  their  infidelity. 

Whence,  it  seems  to  me,  we  may  gather  one  of  two  things ; 
cither  that  there  is  nothing  in  any  European  form  of  religion 
KO  reasonable  or  ascertained,  as  that  it  can  be  taught  securch 
to  our  youth,  or  fastened  in  their  minds  by  any  rivets  of  proof 
which  they  shall  not  be  'ible  to  loosen  the  moment  they  begin 


MODERN   EDUCATION.  449 

to  think ;  or  else,  that  110  means  are  taken  to  train  them  uj 
such  demonstrable  creeds. 

It  seems  to  me  the  duty  of  a  rational  nation  to  ascertain 
(and  to  be  at  some  pains  in  the  matter)  which  of  these  suppo- 
sitions is  true ;  and,  if  indeed  no  proof  can  be  given  of  any 
supernatural  fact,  or  Divine  doctrine,  stronger  than  a  youth 
just  out  of  his  teens  can  overthrow  in  the  first  stirrings 
of  serious  thought,  to  confess  tins  boldly ;  to  get  rid  of  the 
expense  of  an  Establishment,  and  the  hypocrisy  of  a  Liturgy ; 
to  exhibit  its  cathedrals  as  curious  memorials  of  a  bygone 
superstition,  and,  abandoning  all  thoughts  of  the  next  world, 
to  set  itself  to  make  the  best  it  can  of  this. 

But  if,  on  the  other  hand,  there  does  exist  any  evidence  by 
which  the  probability  of  certain  religious  facts  may  be  shown, 
as  clearly,  even,  as  the  probabilities  of  things  not  absolutely 
ascertained  in  astronomical  or  geological  science,  let  this  evi- 
dence be  set  before  all  our  youth  so  distinctly,  and  the  facts 
for  which  it  appears  inculcated  upon  them. so  steadily,  that 
although  it  may  be  possible  for  the  evil  conduct  of  after  life  to 
efface,  or  for  its  earnest  and  protracted  meditation  to  modify, 
the  impressions  of  early  years,  it  may  not  be  possible  for  our 
young  men,  the  instant  they  emerge  from  their  academies,  to 
scatter  themselves  like  a  flock  of  wild  fowl  risen  out  of  a  marsh, 
and  drift  away  on  every  irregular  wind  of  heresy  and  apostasy. 

Lastly.  Our  System  of  European  education  despises  politics. 
— That  is  to  say,  the  science  of  the  relations  and  duties  of 
men  to  each  other.  One  would  imagine,  indeed,  by  a  glance  ai 
the  state  of  the  world,  that  there  was  no  such  science.  And, 
indeed,  it  is  one  still  in  its  infancy. 

It  implies,  in  its  full  sense,  the  knowledge  of  the  operations 
of  the  virtues  and  vices  of  men  upon  themselves  and  society ; 
the  understanding  of  the  ranks  and  offices  of  their  intellectual 
and  bodily  powers  in  their  various  adaptations  to  art,  science, 


450  MORALS    A.ND    RELIGION". 

and  industry ;  the  understanding  of  the  proper  offices  of  art, 
science,  and  labor  themselves,  as  well  as  of  the  foundations 
of  jurisprudence,  and  broad  principles  of  commerce ;  all  this 
being  coupled  with  practical  knowledge  of  the  present  state 
and  wants  of  mankind. 

What,  it  will  be  said,  and  is  all  this  to  be  taught  to  school 
boys  ?  No ;  but  the  first  elements  of  it,  all  that  are  necessary 
to  be  known  by  an  individual  in  order  to  his  acting  wisely  in 
any  station  of  life  might  be  taught,  not  only  to  every  school- 
boy, but  to  every  peasant.  The  impossibility  of  equality 
among  men ;  the  good  which  arises  from  their  inequality ;  the 
compensating  circumstances  in  different  states  and  fortunes ; 
the  honorableness  of  every  man  who  is  worthily  filling  his 
appointed  place  in  society,  however  humble  ;  the  proper  rela- 
tions of  poor  and  rich,  governor  and  governed ;  the  nature 
of  wealth,  and  mode  of  its  circulation  ;  the  difference  between 
productive  and  unproductive  labor ;  the  relation  of  the  pro- 
ducts of  the  mind  and  hand ;  the  true  value  of  works  of  the 
higher  arts,  and  the  possible  amount  of  their  production ;  the 
meaning  of  " Civilization,"  its  advantages  and  dangers;  the 
meaning  of  the  term  "  Refinement ;"  the  possibilities  of  pos- 
sessing refinement  in  a  low  station,  and  of  losing  it  in  a  high 
one ;  and,  above  all,  the  significance  of  almost  every  act  of  a 
man's  daily  life,  in  its  ultimate  operation  upon  himself  and 
others ; — all  this  might  be,  and  ought  to  be,  taught  to  every 
boy  in  the  Kingdom,  so  completely,  that  it  should  be  just  aa 
impossible  to  introduce  an  absurd  or  licentious  doctrine  among 
our  adult  population,  as  a  new  version  of  the  multiplication 
table.  Nor  am  I  altogether  without  hope  that  some  day  it 
may  enter  into  the  heads  of  the  tutors  of  our  schools  to  try 
whether  it  is  not  as  easy  to  make  an  Eton  boy's  mind  as  sensi- 
tive to  falseness  in  policy,  as  his  ear  is  at  present  to  falseness  in 
prosody. 


MODEBN   EDUCATION.  461 

1  know  that  this  is  much  to  hope.  That  English  ministers 
of  religion  should  ever  come  to  desire  rather  to  make  a  youth 
acquainted  with  the  powers  of  Nature  and 'of  God,  than  with 
the  powers  of  Greek  particles;  that  they  should  ever  think  it 
more  useful  to  show  him  how  the  great  universe  rolls  upon  its 
course  in  heaven,  than  how  the  syllables  are  fitted  in  a  tragic 
metre  ;  that  they  should  hold  it  more  advisable  for  him  to  be 
fixed  in  the  principles  of  religion  than  in  those  of  syntax ;  or, 
finally,  that  they  should  ever  come  to  apprehend  that  a  youth 
likely  to  go  straight  out  of  college  into  parliament,  might  not 
unadvisably  know  as  much  of  the  Peninsular  as  of  the  Pelo- 
ponnesian  War,  and  be  as  well  acquainted  with  the  state  of 
Modern  Italy  as  of  old  Etruria ; — all  this,  however  unreasona 
bly,  I  do  hope,  and  mean  to  work  for.  For  though  I  have  not 
yet  abandoned  all  expectation  of  a  better  world  than  this,  I 
believe  this  in  which  we  live  is  not  so  good  as  it  might  be.  I 
know  there  are  many  people  wao  suppose  French  revolutions, 
Italian  insurrections,  Caffre  wars,  and  such  other  scenic  efforts 
of  modern  policy,  to  be  among  the  normal  conditions  of  huma- 
nity. I  know  there  are  many  who  think  the  atmosphere  oi 
rapine,  rebellion,  and  misery  which  wraps  the  lower  orders  of 
Europe  more  closely  every  day,  is  as  natural  a  phenomenon  as  a 
hot  summer.  But  God  forbid !  There  are  ills  which  flesh  is  heir 
to  and  troubles  to  which  man  is  born ;  but  the  troubles  which  he 
is  born  to  are  as  sparks  which  fly  upward,  not  as  flames  burn- 
ing to  the  nethermost  Hell.  The  poor  we  must  have  with  us 
always,  and  sorrow  is  inseparable  from  any  hour  of  life;  but 
we  may  make  their  poverty  such  as  shall  inherit  the  earth 
and  the  sorrow,  such  as  shall  be  hallowed  by  the  hand  of  the 
Comforter,  with  everlasting  comfort.  We  can,  il'  we  will  but 
shake  oft*  this  lethargy  and  dreaming  that  is  upon  us,  and  take 
the  pains  to  think  and  act  like  men,  we  can,  I  say,  make  king 
doms  to  be  like  well  governed  households,  in  which,  indeed, 


452  MORALS    AND   RELIGION. 

while  no  care  or  kindness  can  prevent  occasional  heart- burn 
ings,  nor  any  foresight  or  piety  anticipate  all  the  vicissitudes 
of  fortune,  or  avert  every  stroke  of  calamity,  yet  the  unity  of 
their  affection  and  fellowship  remains  unbroken,  and  their  dis- 
tress is  neither  embittered  by  division,  prolonged  by  impru- 
dence, nor  darkened  by  dishonor. 


THE   EMD. 


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